I remember, when I was a wee lad in art II, concluding that - though I may want to be an artist - AP art was ultimately unnecessary for me. I thought the whole idea of AP classes was silly in the first place; why a student would volunteer to have several times the normal volume of work in order to appear marginally more appetizing for an average college was beyond me.
I'm not sure what made me change my mind on that one. It probably wasn't ambition. I made a couple friends in art III that had taken AP art and their work caught my interest. More than anything, though, I think it was just that I was running out of art classes. I had, by the end of junior year, taken all but drawing and AP art. Surely, my naive younger self thought, an AP art class can't be too intensive.
On the first hour of the first day of the last year of high school, I realized what I had done; I had fallen into a trap. Ms Rossi displayed to us in a dark room the creations of the previous generation of AP art students. Immediately my self esteem fell so hard it burrowed through the Earth's crust and disintegrated in the planet's fiery mantle. Meanwhile, my standards shot up into the troposphere, colliding with the space station and creating a cascading cloud of debris that destroyed every satellite and engulfed the Earth with a layer of speeding shrapnel that halted any future plans of space flight. "Your free time no longer exists," hissed Ms. Rossi, her eyes glowing red. "your will belongs to AP art."
Luckily, I had no jobs, relationships, or homework, so I did my art anyway. Things went by smoother then I expected. I did my breadth somewhat unenthusiastically, but consistently, or so I thought. Then the first quarter ended.
The class was behind schedule. First it was by two pieces, then three, then four. Procrastination started adding up. My seat got changed. Sketchbook assignments were thankfully abandoned, but only due to the increased business of the class.
Christmas occurred briefly, then third quarter started. Still a bit behind schedule, we finished up the breadth and moved onto the concentration. I chose a somewhat obscure subject matter that I totally loved. I actually plan on continuing it this summer, because I have so many unused ideas for it. But I digress; Ms. Rossi started setting deadlines, and this is where the epidemic of sleep deprivation stuck. My seat got changed again. I drew a few cool pictures.
I'm not sure when the fourth quarter occurred because I had at this point lost all sense of time. I learned that the best way to deal with the workload was to become a psychopath, as did some others. My seat didn't get changed, but I moved tables anyway; the class had become so chaotic that nobody noticed. Tables flipped, paint spilled, brushes burned like miniature torches. At the height of it all, AP registration's stark lack of user-friendliness forced us to quickly solicit money from our family and friends, in order to pay for the privilege of having my pictures gazed upon by my masters in College Board. After much bloodshed, portfolios were submitted. Then it was over.
While my skills had shown definite improvement, I had many doubts as to whether this progression was worth the pain of AP art. That is, until the entire city of Apex piled into Gallery 123 and showed unreserved love of the art made by my friends and I. It was such a surreal experience, showcasing my craft with a vanguard of my like-minded compatriots to the world. I have confirmed at this point that the art is not the most valuable element of AP art, but rather the artist is. I had never before, even in previous art classes, been totally surrounded by real artists, making art - these people are my brood. I have no doubts now that taking AP art was wholly worthwhile; it has been certainly among my most formative experiences in high school. Indeed, these early mornings spent telling jokes and drawing pictures of robots have been shockingly profound, and I would gladly go through it again.
This may very well be my last blog post on the Omnibus of Ontological Obverses, and as much as I would love to continue writing sarcastic quips on this mostly-untouched corner of the internet that only gets ~11 unique visitors a week, it is also 1:42 A.M. right now and I am very sleepy. If I ever get around to marketing my self with more conventional social media in the future, I will post the links to those pages here. But for now, I leave you with this:
I'm not sure what made me change my mind on that one. It probably wasn't ambition. I made a couple friends in art III that had taken AP art and their work caught my interest. More than anything, though, I think it was just that I was running out of art classes. I had, by the end of junior year, taken all but drawing and AP art. Surely, my naive younger self thought, an AP art class can't be too intensive.
On the first hour of the first day of the last year of high school, I realized what I had done; I had fallen into a trap. Ms Rossi displayed to us in a dark room the creations of the previous generation of AP art students. Immediately my self esteem fell so hard it burrowed through the Earth's crust and disintegrated in the planet's fiery mantle. Meanwhile, my standards shot up into the troposphere, colliding with the space station and creating a cascading cloud of debris that destroyed every satellite and engulfed the Earth with a layer of speeding shrapnel that halted any future plans of space flight. "Your free time no longer exists," hissed Ms. Rossi, her eyes glowing red. "your will belongs to AP art."
Luckily, I had no jobs, relationships, or homework, so I did my art anyway. Things went by smoother then I expected. I did my breadth somewhat unenthusiastically, but consistently, or so I thought. Then the first quarter ended.
The class was behind schedule. First it was by two pieces, then three, then four. Procrastination started adding up. My seat got changed. Sketchbook assignments were thankfully abandoned, but only due to the increased business of the class.
Christmas occurred briefly, then third quarter started. Still a bit behind schedule, we finished up the breadth and moved onto the concentration. I chose a somewhat obscure subject matter that I totally loved. I actually plan on continuing it this summer, because I have so many unused ideas for it. But I digress; Ms. Rossi started setting deadlines, and this is where the epidemic of sleep deprivation stuck. My seat got changed again. I drew a few cool pictures.
I'm not sure when the fourth quarter occurred because I had at this point lost all sense of time. I learned that the best way to deal with the workload was to become a psychopath, as did some others. My seat didn't get changed, but I moved tables anyway; the class had become so chaotic that nobody noticed. Tables flipped, paint spilled, brushes burned like miniature torches. At the height of it all, AP registration's stark lack of user-friendliness forced us to quickly solicit money from our family and friends, in order to pay for the privilege of having my pictures gazed upon by my masters in College Board. After much bloodshed, portfolios were submitted. Then it was over.
While my skills had shown definite improvement, I had many doubts as to whether this progression was worth the pain of AP art. That is, until the entire city of Apex piled into Gallery 123 and showed unreserved love of the art made by my friends and I. It was such a surreal experience, showcasing my craft with a vanguard of my like-minded compatriots to the world. I have confirmed at this point that the art is not the most valuable element of AP art, but rather the artist is. I had never before, even in previous art classes, been totally surrounded by real artists, making art - these people are my brood. I have no doubts now that taking AP art was wholly worthwhile; it has been certainly among my most formative experiences in high school. Indeed, these early mornings spent telling jokes and drawing pictures of robots have been shockingly profound, and I would gladly go through it again.
This may very well be my last blog post on the Omnibus of Ontological Obverses, and as much as I would love to continue writing sarcastic quips on this mostly-untouched corner of the internet that only gets ~11 unique visitors a week, it is also 1:42 A.M. right now and I am very sleepy. If I ever get around to marketing my self with more conventional social media in the future, I will post the links to those pages here. But for now, I leave you with this: