Virginia Museum of Fine Arts is largely responsible for my confident path towards financial ruin. While spending time in the museum's studio classes gluing stamps onto wire armatures and stuffing maps into teabags I went bonkers. These thoughts kept entered my head saying I had to keep making things.
Much of my time was spent in keeping colored dirt out of drains and showing kids how to form a picture of an eye, secretly begrudging them their talent. I became an addict. It got to the point where I realized recovery might never come, and I was alright with that. Paint fumes do a job on you.
The VMFA was my home away from home during my high-school years. The educators there were all either very passionate in their work or they kept up a good face. The enthusiasm they exhibited helped me past my middle school predisposition of, "art museums are the last place in the world I want to spend my time" and the, "I can't draw a stick figure" mantra.
I was twelve when I was first entered the museum's art room. I was nervous and had no desire to make a fool out of myself in-front of perfect strangers. My sage of a mother spoke words of wisdom, "I paid good money for this class, you're gonna do it." So I did. Though it wasn't a complete out of body experience it wasn't half-bad either. I kept coming back. Little things drew me in, a poem discovered written on a windowsill, the bit of canvas left bare in Mary's Cassatt's painting of apples and mothers, the way many people knew me by name and I knew theirs. Now here I am at James Madison University for a Bachelors in Studio Art, crazy.
A poem thing I wrote about the writer of the hidden poem, which has since been painted over :(
There's a girl who lives in the windowsill. I haven't seen her but I'm pretty sure she's there. Sitting cross-legged in her hole looking down at art-snobs and nose-picking kids alike congregating below. Does she want a part of their lives? I don't think so. She likes her home. Likes the wandering, people-watching, secret-guarding rhythm of her days. Human limitations reach even there though. Loneliness presses at her temples. Time for a stroll. Arms unwrap from curled up knees and bare-feet soundlessly hit the hallway floor. Where to go? Asia tugs at her tonight.
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