The Catalyst

The other day I had dinner with friends that I hadn't seen in years. We had each gone into different schools and then, inevitably, time escaped our control. We spoke of what we had missed out on in each others lives and of our plans as the current road neared its end.

That night, the friends that I had once been able to relate to on every level felt like people I would, now, never be able to understand. It had become very clear; I had changed in these six years. Of course, time does that to everyone, but I realised instantly that the catalyst for me was Art School.

On the surface, as it would for everyone, art school made art even more of an abstract thought than it was before—questioning everything and clarifying nothing. Art school opened me to the world of contemporary ideas, let me unravel the conceptual and then rooted me back into tradition as if nothing else could be any more complex.

Being in an art school also meant realising the difference between loving art and suffering for it. As an arts student, there were moments where everything fell into place and then days when nothing was right. Some things came in bursts of pure expression and some decisions felt like unsolvable dilemmas. And yet, I still revelled in the process, there being nothing else worth this many tears.

And then art school taught me that I would never feel content with my creation. But, over the years I learnt to embrace each disappointment, so that next time there would be less of it—or just the same amount, but on a different level—as it’s that burning desire for discovery and challenge, that is the only way in which an artist grows. And so, within these walls, I had witnessed the polarity between a life with ambition and an existence without it.

The void that we existed in for six years made me who I am and brought me closer to who I have always dreamed of being. Those times I questioned everything, I realised that my passion never really wavered. This incubator of ideas, has an ecosystem of its own, it cultivated me into an incredibly confused artists, but, undeniably, an impassioned person.