Kathy Rhoades on tue 6 jun 06
> Kelly,
Your going to love it, just do it. I went back at age 32, BFA, then went for my MFA at 40, moved clear across the country to New Mexico. All the other grads were in their 20's to their 40's. None right out of undergrad I think but me. I learned a lot, not just about art or ceramics. I had the time of my life, rewarding, loved it. It still is just a piece of paper you are paying for, but I am glad I did it. I was petrified, I left everything behind but my husband. My kids stayed in PA, my son was finishing his senior year and I wouldn't have gone if he wouldn't have said,"Go for it mom>" It was my inspiration, and in the end I feel I did it for my children as well as myself. I never would have thought that because of that move my son would have moved to Denver and gone to gunsmithing school and my daughter would have moved down with us and attended graphic design schoo and is now a graphic designer in Florida (If you need someone to design your business cards let me know,
she's great) You never, in a million years know what that moment in time will cause to happen next. It is a wonderful journey we get to have in life. have fun and enjoy your new adventure!
Kathy Rhoades in PA
>
> On the Averill side of my family, the highest compliment was, "You're a
> good worker". When the patriarch of the family saw the station wagons
> roll in for a weekend at the cottage, he stood with a mile-long list of
> what needed to be raked, weeded, planted, repaired, scrubbed or painted.
> The two sons (who had competed all their lives to determine who was the
> better worker) unloaded the children, and lined us up to prove to the
> Uber-Averill that we had been well raised with the ability to work hard.
> It's probably genetic. I have the drumstick-calves and peasant-wife
> biceps of my Anglo-Germanic ancestors. I come (on that side) from German
> stonecutters, who emigrated to Petersburg, Michigan, worked hard, and
> ended up owning the hotel, the tavern and half the town. (My grandmother
> and her sister went to EMU (then Michigan Normal College) to become
> country school teachers in 1916.)
>
> Friends have written me off list saying "You go, girl" and "You can do
> it". But like Tony says, you can be anything on line, and people give me
> way more credit than is due.
>
> I am not organized. My house looks like someone turned it upside down
> and shook it. So does my studio. I will sit down, on a whim, and compose
> a clayart post, make clay candlesticks or decoupage a cupboard door,
> when there is nothing for dinner, the bills haven't been paid, the
> laundry mines are knee deep and nobody has clean underwear. I start off
> to do one project and find another and then another, and by the end of
> the day none of them are completed. I just keep going and eventually
> something, somewhere gets done.
>
> I am a good worker. I am a good worker. I have been told that over and
> over, it rings like a bell and reassures me. I heard it Sunday when I
> took turns with my dad, running the big Stihl chainsaw and stuffing an
> entire mulberry tree's branches into a chipper to mulch my
> flower-and-tomato beds. Dad grinned, watching me stuff a tangled, 20
> foot grapevine snarl into the chipper. ("That grapevine really pissed me
> off," I told him after. "Yeah", he said, "but I noticed you weren't
> going to let it win.")
>
> I'm a good worker. It's been my mantra these last few days, when the
> reality of starting an MFA makes me, in turn, excited and confident,
> then terrified, nauseous and full of self doubt. The more Diana tells me
> about who my fellow grads students will be, the more I am excited and
> intimidated at once. I am a good worker, I am a good worker, I am a good
> worker.
>
> I log on the website and find that I have to go here for a parking pass
> and there for my student ID, file this form and that, and a lot of other
> stuff I have not thought about since 1988/my MA. Apparently if I were
> younger and more tech-savvy I would know what it means that I can use
> the flexibility of RSS to customize my portal, and download my, um,
> something-or-other into my PDA (if I had one). I am a good worker, I am
> a good worker, I am a good worker.
>
> Mel says he knew a year ago that I was going to EMU. Jeff laughed when I
> read it to him because I didn't know I was going, myself, until a month
> ago. But mel is a good listener, a good advisor. When he was in town
> last year and came to dinner, all I had was a litany of reasons why I
> could never do the tempting MFA -- not now, no way. We can't afford it,
> it's too far, it's not practical, no time, my kids are still little and
> I am unwilling to put them in school.
>
> But one by one, every "I can't" that I threw in the air, Diana shot down
> like clay skeet over the bean field. The last clay pigeon fell and his
> decision happened at the last minute, so fast that I barely had time to
> get cold feet. (Deadlines, shmedlines.)
>
> Some of you may know this, but the apparently mild mannered Diana
> Pancioli is a tenacious cross between a bulldozer and somebody's
> hard-headed Italian aunt on steroids. I have a feeling she accomplishes
> a lot of her goals by cornering administrators in their offices and
> keeping at them until they surrender. (It's an approach my Averill
> family would approve of. If we had a family crest, the motto would be
> some Latin version of "Get the Job Done".) I'm impressed, and a little
> afraid of her ;0)
>
> Maybe I will finish the program and hang the MFA over my stove and that
> will be that. But I am aware that (as I told a pal) my talk is bigger
> than my pots, and I need to catch up. I am a good worker but I have a
> lot to learn. I could wait for when "the time is right" -- I will have
> years to myself in a decade, when my littlest is off on her own -- but
> life just doesn't work that way sometimes.
>
> Ken reminded me of one of my favorite sayings: "Life is short, but it's
> wide." I spent my last workshop at ACC with Josh DeWeese, kind of
> tormented by the "tease" of packing my year's worth of clay-energy into
> that one narrow week. I was aching to be one of the grad students, torn
> between my family and my passion to move forward faster, more, now.
>
> I remember when the young fireballs were flinging themselves off the 30
> foot stone cliff into the reservoir, and I climbed up, curious to see
> how it looked from there, what their view must be... trying to imagine
> their nerve, and the faith that if they leaped, the "net" of cool water
> would appear (and not some unseen underwater outcropping of rock, some
> spine-shattering bad landing or unforeseen horror.)
>
> One of the guys -- I think it was Wesley Smith -- yelled up from the
> water, "If you think too hard, you'll never do it." Hmmm, funny, I
> thought, they think I came up here to jump. I turned to plod back down
> the wooded path to the shore and then -- without thinking -- spun, and
> ran off the edge.
>
> The very second my feet left terra firma I changed my mind -- wanted to
> climb back up the air like Wile E. Coyote -- but it was too late. That
> feeling in my stomach of sheer thrill and terror and irreversibility, as
> I hung suspended 30 feet up --
>
> that's how my stomach feels now.
>
> I'm a good worker, I'm a good worker, I'm a good worker...
>
> Yours
> Kelly in Ohio
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________________________
Get the FREE email that has everyone talking at http://www.mail2world.com
Unlimited Email Storage – POP3 – Calendar – SMS – Translator – Much More!
>
> ______________________________________________________________________________
> Send postings to clayart@lsv.ceramics.org
>
> You may look at the archives for the list or change your subscription
> settings from http://www.ceramics.org/clayart/
>
> Moderator of the list is Mel Jacobson who may be reached at melpots@pclink.com.
>
| |
|
