What This Semester Taught Me

There are some experiences in life that shape who we are. There are some that hurt us, some that make us wish it could never end, and others that make us question our existence entirely. But through all of it, we grow stronger. That's what college has mainly taught me. Lectures and art projects are what I'm paying for, but it's the transition into adulthood that is the net result.
This year has been a mix of me trying to figure out who I am, while also figuring out relationships in my life. In psychology we learned about this pyramid of personal growth. As a teenager, we try and figure out our identity, and in our young adulthood, we figure out relationships, both romantic and platonic. Me trying to figure out both has been a journey in itself. I am addicted to love. Being near someone, sharing intimacy, it's something I've never truly experienced before coming here. That can lead to a lot of unhealthy decisions. Going on a 3am Grindr hookup after a night of being sad about your last relationship isn't smart. The difference between intimacy and love is something my brain is still having trouble understanding. I get attached quickly, and when those experiences end badly, I feel that the only person to blame is myself. It's worse when you're roommate and best friend is a demisexual (a person who find sexual attraction only after building an emotional connection), because it makes my problems feel like they are inborn. Liking sex isn't a bad thing, but when you're trying to figure out what a real relationship is like, it's not a good idea to hookup with so many guys. Grindr isn't the place to find a boyfriend. I end up feeling like I'm not good enough for anyone because most guys I meet aren't looking for anything serious. It has made me more self conscious of my body and my personality. I've learned to stop blaming everything on myself. Boys, especially my age, aren't the best pool of people to look for a relationship, and I realize that I need let myself mature, and let everyone around me mature, because everyone is trying to figure this out, and once we get past this stage, relationships can be stronger and healthier. I learned that there are people in my life that I love and I don't need to be looking for happiness everywhere else when it's right in front of me.
I've never measured enough when I draw, but this piece taught me how to do that effectively. I can whip out stuff a lot more easily and more accurately when I take a pencil and figure out where everything is. Through all of the technical training I still try to stay true to my style and always be making art. The eraser marks in the hand are something that bother me, as does my execution of the watch. But that's all part of learning. Getting comfortable with the materials is a whole different aspect of drawing. I can see things, now I need to work on making what I put down on paper more in line with what my eyes see. I like to think this project summed up my first semester. It represents everything I've learned, while staying true to who I am, and my facial expression sums up how learning isn't always easy. I am a better artist, I am a stronger person, and I am ready to continue this great exploration and continue to grow. I don't know everything, I've always been open to that about my art, but not about myself, and being here has taught me that being open to emotional growth is just as important as intellectual growth.

Race and Bernie Sanders

Let me start off by saying that I am vigorously in support of Bernie Sanders. For people who don't know who he is, spend half an hour on the internet and you'll find out soon enough. There isn't any candidate that is more in line with my own views and I have never seen a politician more honest than Bernie Sanders. He is a good man, there is no disputing that. But there does seem to be a dispute brewing with Bernie Sanders and non-white America, and this week, escalated when protesters from the Black Lives Matter movement disrupted an event in Seattle where Sanders was set to speak. 

I see Sanders as a hero. But I also feel an enormous amount of sympathy for the Black community because for generations their problems have been pushed off, and they have every right and should be protesting and organizing to secure their rights. So when I heard what happened in Seattle I didn't know what side to be on. I think the saddest part of this whole thing is that the protesters don't realize how Bernie's plan for our country would help minority communities more than Obama did in his almost seven years in office. 

Martin Luther King Jr. was radically liberal for his time. People like to forget this fact because he is seen as an admired historical figure by all, and his views never aligned with mainstream America until recently. Aside from social equality, King saw that the best way to help his community was by bringing more economic opportunity. Equality is more than making laws securing that children can go to the same school. It's about creating a system that lets everyone, regardless of race, have opportunities to succeed. It's giving African-Americans the money to afford decent housing, to have good schools, and to pay for college. Police brutality, in many ways, stems from the same systematic and cultural policies that keep money and opportunity out of minority communities. Laws can be written to ensure that police are fair, but that doesn't end the years of economic deprivation that has plagued communities of color for over a century. Putting cameras on police officers doesn't solve racism. Ending the war on drugs, demilitarizing the police, providing affordable housing and good schools, having a media that represents the whole country, not just the white liberal elite, that's how start. There is no candidate running for president that understands this more the Bernie Sanders. I understand the frustration that Black communities in this country have, but understand that Bernie Sanders is a white liberal in Vermont. He is an honest man, and he listens when you talk to him. Don't attack Bernie, debate Bernie. Sanders is consistently asking for debates and he has been very vocal with the public. The Black Lives Matter movement needs to realize that they need to support Bernie as much as they can, because there isn't another candidate who will help them more. I feel the same frustration with Sanders when it comes to immigration. He has been very quite about that topic, and he needs to address that more. As the son of two immigrants, I know this country needs to rethink how we deal with that system, but I also know that Latino communities across this country could benefit immensely from Sanders' economic ideas. People die trying to get to this country. They are refuges escaping the violence and poverty of their homes, and we need to make a system that can incorporate those people to our great country. Sanders is the divide of liberals in this country. He is a white man who is trying to be a man of the people. He is a man of the people, but needs to understand that the people are diverse and different communities have different issues. That being said, I still believe Bernie is the candidate who will do the most for minority communities if elected president. Even candidates like Rubio and Cruz would do far less for the Latino communities of this country because they answer to the billionaires and their party more than the people. 

Trust in Bernie, everyone. I do.  

Why (Some) White People Are Scared

The United States has, on multiple occasions, gone through major shifts in its demography. But through most of that shifting, the ethnic groups never strayed too far from the English center it was founded on. German, Irish, Italian are a common part of not only the white American culture, but also its DNA. A white American with Irish heritage isn't treated much differently than a white American with German heritage, and their experience and culture in this country is shared. Though these people were once persecuted, they exist with all the same ethnic benefits that the previous English class once boasted. In the case of Blacks though, they were never assimilated into that ruling class because of the generations of slavery, persecution, discrimination, and the obvious difference in skin color. Over the past thirty years, the black population hasn't shifted very much, never straying too far from 15% of Americans.

But now, the United States is going through a different change, one that is unparalleled in its scope and the reason why the white American experience is in danger. White America has been able to be the ruling class ever since the founding of the country, and has been able to keep minorities like Blacks, Latinos, and Asian Americans from experiencing the type of growth and acceptance that the European migrations boasted. But, in viewing the demographic changes that have occurred in the hispanic population of the country, and the expected growth, white Americans are, for the first time ever, faced with the integration of a non-European group entering that ruling class. While there are many hispanics with European ancestry, many still hold strong ties with their Native Latin American ethnicity. This year, a quarter of all children born in the United States were Hispanic. One out of every four children are Latino and the population of non-hispanic white children has gone from 74% in 1980 to 51% in 2015 according to the POP3 RACE AND HISPANIC ORIGIN COMPOSITION. Even though there is much variation of Hispanic Americans, as many Hispanics are able to assimilate almost totally into white America because their physical features and upbringing, Latino culture hasn't left our group. Many of us are fluent in Spanish and have close relations with our families in Latin America. As our population grows in this super connected world, we could soon see the United States becoming a part of Latin America, especially as we embrace Latino culture.

The fear is understandable. When I hear some Fox News pundit or misinformed patriot talking about closing the border, saying immigrants must learn English to be citizens, knocking down Affirmative Action, or even blatant racism, I understand it. Change is hard to deal with. But, take this into consideration; Europeans came to this continent and changed everything. There was genocide of the Native peoples of the Americas that lasted generations and is overlooked and still denied by many people. So, you, white America, are worried about a cultural change to your home? You fear that an external force will come in and make you learn a new language and maybe add a few more Mexican restaurants to your town? About 100 million Native people died so you could call this your home. You yourself are not responsible for that, but understand that the home and culture you are trying to protect is a result of relocating and killing millions of people. Conservatism in this country makes little sense to me. To conserve something like "racial purity" or "family values" or even the Constitution in a country that forced the largest change in North America is confusing to me. I get your fear, white America, I do, but please, remember the reason why you are the majority.  

Comfort

My artistic career has been a journey of pushing every boundary I have. It's allowed me to explore parts of myself that I wouldn't have even thought to go, but recently I realized that there is still a huge boundary that I haven't really touched. Style. It's a weird word to me because it assumes that art is categorized into these set things when in my mind, I just draw what I like. I have used style as a crutch ever since I started drawing. My first pieces where poor copies of expressionist art, and I used the guise of that style to pardon my lack of drawing skills. Ever since I gained confidence in my abilities, I assumed that I had no crutches anymore, that my work could be whatever I wanted it to be and the fact that it all fell into this style that can easily be identified as me didn't bother me. But recently I realized that I was using the same crutch now that I did before. There are some things that I don't even touch in art. And the reason is because I fear what the outcome would be because I don't have experience with that thing.

There are three pieces that I have made in the past month that have tried to challenge this uncomfortable feeling I have towards certain things in art.

The first is a self-portrait I made. Color is something I fear because I always feel like I get it wrong. I prefer to do everything in black and white because it reduces the number of things I need to think about. I would use color to accent the pieces, but most of my work has been just charcoal on paper. I visited the Frida Kahlo exhibit at the New York Botanical Gardens and I left inspired. Frida Kahlo is one of my idols and I had started an oil painting trying to mimic her style a while ago. I hated this piece so much I didn't touch it for weeks. Kahlo's use of color is fantastic, so I tried to copy that. Now, I feel a lot more confident in color. I can use it to my advantage rather than hide from it and hope I magically get better without practice.

The next piece is this landscape I've been doing for quest. I am comfortable only when the image is close up. I would normally freak out if I had to this, but I tried hard to make it what I wanted it to be. This is one of the few pieces I have ever worked on that has no people in it. I love portraits more than anything but I don't want to not be able to do anything else. This is great practice for doing something I'm not comfortable with because I should know how to do landscapes, even if I don't like them because in a situation like quest, I'd have to. I used to not be comfortable with acrylic paint, but after a year of working in the art room, where my painting options are either that or watercolor, I got better at using it because I was using it so often. I find that the materials that I use often determines how the piece is going to look and I don't always like that. Acrylic is good because you can layer it quickly. The water I did was only possible because it dried quick. It's a different mindset for every medium you use and I have only recently become aware of that. I can't approach acrylic like oil just like I can't approach oil like charcoal.

This last piece is one I did today. I was home and I wanted to crank something out and I wasn't even considering going in the direction that I did. I was sketching out the basic design in pencil, and for some reason, instead of picking up charcoal like I would normally do, I got a fine point sharpie. It is one of the things I dread most. It's so permanent and I'm not that type of artist. I put down something and I go over it a hundred times. It's why I have grown to like acrylic paint so much. I can just keep layering it, making slight changes, and never have to worry about fucking up something because I can always go over it with white paint. But this piece was the opposite of everything I do. It's a single line that defines areas and it's very cartoony.. I love it because it shows that I am capable of making work outside of what I conventionally make. I used oil pastels to color it in and I felt like I was in elementary school again, making sure to be very exact with my coloring because if I drew outside the lines, the whole piece would be ruined.

Decisions

So today I got two emails. Both were acceptance letters, the first from Pratt, which I got in the middle of my Man's Inhumanity to Man class and just now, I checked my email again and Syracuse University sent me an acceptance email. So now I am in a point where I loved to be in, but also where I hate to be. Rochester Institute of Technology is my favorite school. I've spent hours finding out everything I can about all these schools, and RIT is my favorite because it has everything I want in a school, and nothing I don't want. I hate to be in this position because now I actually have to consider these other schools. Decision is hard and if I was denied by these schools my choice would have been so much easier. Each school is generally the same if we want to consider ranking of my program. There are so many places that rank schools and these three are all very good schools for Industrial Design.
I applied to other schools, but I wouldn't want to go to those. Even if I get into Carnegie Mellon or RISD, I do not like their philosophy on education. Schools like those are elitist, and even though none of these schools are cheap, I don't want to go to a school that invests in rich students to become successful. And education wise, I am sure that Carnegie Mellon isn't extraordinarily better than Syracuse. In fact, from what I've seen through my own research, RIT is probably going to give me the best education because it's one of the only schools where the focus is diverse and includes a lot more math and science classes, which even though I probably won't enjoy, will be better for me.
Pratt was my original favorite school. I loved being in Brooklyn because being a student in NYC felt right for me, but after spending a lot of time thinking about it, I decided that Pratt was probably not going to be good for me. I visited the school and spent time with my friend Michelle Marin, and she gave me an unofficial tour of the campus. It's a great looking school, tiny, but pretty, but after seeing the people there, I didn't feel comfortable. I don't want to be surrounded by artists. I also don't want to be that close to home. If my parents can get to me within ten minutes from where they work, which is the case with where my father works, I don't want to be there. I don't want everyone at my school to be like me, which sounds weird to say, but it's true. It's the same reason I didn't want to go to Purchase. Everyone there is the weird kid in high school, and I'm not about that.
That's why I turned my attention to Syracuse. I loved its size and it's Industrial Design program was great because it was separate from the rest of the art program. I would be with other ID kids, and be in a campus where there were a lot of things happening, and I loved that. But the school has a big Greek community. It's the number one party school in the country, which really doesn't bother me, but it's something to keep in mind. Location wise, it's great. It's far, and it's cold. I like the cold and I like being far.
RIT had been an option longer than any school I applied to. It had my program and I applied there almost forgetting that I had. I lumped it together with Syracuse because they're both upstate and they both have orange as a school color. But after I started to do more research into it, I realized that it was a great fit for me. It's a school for nerds. The way I see it is that it just like a normal run-of-the-mill university, but with a lot more nerdy kids. And that has a lot of advantages for me. As an ID student, it means being in an environment where design is taken in as a technology tool rather than an extension of art. It means that I will be working with engineers and computer science majors and I would have the best equipment. I could chill with artists and work with geeks. I feel that RIT is where I can excel at most.
Industrial designers are judged on their portfolio. That's how you get jobs and success. So, the school I go to, even though it has importance, isn't as important as how good I get at what I want to do. RIT, i feel, is going to leave me with a better portfolio when I graduate, and that's the main reason I want to go there.

RIT

So I just got my acceptance letter to RIT today. This has probably been one of the most relieving things to happen to me in a long time. This was the first school that got back to me that I submitted a portfolio to and it is also one of my favorite schools that I applied to. RIT is making huge advances in their design programs to try and merge design and technology which is really where I want to be. They recently opened a new building called the Vignelli Design Center, and the Vignellis are my biggest design idols. Having their name attached to the school makes me want to study there even more.
Deciding what school to go to is going to be tough, but I am starting to think that RIT is where I might get the best education for industrial design because the focus of the school isn't on art. Everyone there is sort of working towards furthering the world technologically. Being surrounded by video game designers and computer science majors is a totally different experience than being surrounded by only artists.  
When I went to the portfolio day at Purchase College and showed my work to the RIT people, they were the most critical, so I was actually a bit surprised that it was the first school to get back to me. It's a huge confidence booster because now my portfolio feels justified because a school has accepted it. I wasn't expecting to get any notification from RIT until March, because that is when they said they'd get back. I am still waiting on other schools, but right now, RIT is one of my favorites. What makes it great is the focus the school has on computers and technology. The feeling I get from schools like Pratt and Parsons is that design is this extension of art. I was watching a video of the President of RIT talking about the school and the way he addressed design was through a more progressive view. He saw it as a way to enhance technology, not as a spin-off of art.

Colleges

So I've started to hear back from a couple of schools. All the CUNY schools have been sending me stuff, but i don't know if i got into Macaulay Honors until March. New Paltz got back to me today, and I was thinking about my future a bit more. The reason why I applied to New Paltz and Macaulay Honors was because I was scared that maybe I didn't want to study what I had originally planned to in the beginning of the year, industrial design. The thing is, i still do, but I also have found a passion for so many other things. What I am scared of now is being limited because I am in a specialized program. At an art school, most of my curriculum is already pre-decided, and I don't know if I like that. There are still so many things I want to learn, and I am actually starting to consider going to New Paltz because I wouldn't have to be declared until a while into my college career. I could take the computer science classes I've been dying to, I could finally get the start on German I need and I could continue getting fluent in French. I could take art classes too, and feel more in control of what my future might be.
It's hard because I didn't think that I'd ever get to this point. I hadn't even considered that the feeling to not go to art school would be as strong as it is. I want to spend a year drawing and designing, but not if that means spending a year not being allowed to study everything else I want to learn. Going into art school would narrow my options, but not going wouldn't allow me those options that I also want. I can't get a linguistics degree from Pratt just as I can't get an industrial design degree from New Paltz. Also, economically, going to art school is statistically not as wise of an investment. It costs more and the jobs you get after aren't any better. Economics and finance have become a huge part of my life, and I have even thought about minoring in it if I had the option.
Also, I've been thinking about the people I will meet. Artists are interesting and fun people, but they offer a narrow perspective on many things. I love linguists because their lives are focused on learning the perspective of other's through their language. Computer Science guys also have a totally different view on the world than artists. I don't want where I go to school to limit the types of people I will interact with. I want to have it all, and that's not always possible. I have a decision to make, and I don't have to make it now, but I will soon, and I need to think about it more.
Also, a side note, the reason I haven't been blogging much in the past couple months is because I started journaling. I found that it's a much better place to organize my thoughts because I don't have any filters. I can write whatever I want and on a blog I can't because it is public. I think everyone should keep a personal journal. All of the issues I'm going through are recorded and I can look back and think about what I should do.