To hell with art.

YOU HEARD ME RIGHT.

To hell with it.

I love looking at it, I love admiring it, but I LOATHE getting graded for it.

You might say, “Oh, dear Emily. We all go through those classes that tell us we’re not good at something. We have our weaknesses but remember, remember dear one, your strengths.”

Thank you, I will take that advice to the grave. BUT REALLY, Art 101, A C?!

I won’t lie. I have always, always been self-conscious about my art. Or my drawing or whatever.

But please, also, I am not saying this for people to say, “Emily, you are good, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

Again, thank you, will take that advice to the grave.

It all started in middle school when I got a sketch book and would write songs for this amazingly angsty band I was in called “Lockdown”. Here’s one of the deep and moving verses my 13 year old self wrote,

“And even though we’re through, I STILL HATE YOU.”

I told you: moving.

Besides the songs, I would draw. And I was my biggest critic. Because honestly, and I am not saying this as self-deprecation, my drawings were awful.

I say that lovingly.

The girls head was always massive that I would try to draw, the nose looked like it could breathe in a whole gust of wind and the lips looked like they could cut you with how sharp the top lip was that I drew.

Not only that, I would draw “scenery” and it looked like a scene of carnage.

As I kept growing, I stopped drawing because I was seriously not getting any better. Then, when I was living in South Carolina, I had a super, talented friend (Rae Robinson Burton, CHECK HER STUFF OUT) who drew so many wonderful things and was super creative. I tried to draw in my study journal the way she did and lets just say, I gave up after a month.

When I came home from South Carolina, I stopped drawing. Then, as a graduation gift for one of my “little sisters” I had met here in Utah (from the treatment center I worked at), I wrote and drew a children’s book for her.

Lookie here:

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I thought for once, I could get better. I used Youtube videos and tutorials. I was a true “student of the art” or a desperate Youtuber.

Then, as my last semester as a Senior in college (this current semester) I forgot that I needed to take Art 101 to fulfill one of my GE credits. Yay.

I was super excited to start it but what I did not know was that it was a line and design class, not an animated, illustrative whatever that I was trying to cultivate.

Let’s just say that with each assignment, my ability to view myself as someone that could maybe kind of draw, diminished.

That was, until, I decided to look at myself differently.

Yeah, I suck at lines and designs and shapes or whatever. To hell with architecture being in my future.

BUT I am good at loving people and spending time drawing even if it takes hours of youtube videos and self-motivation.

My art or ability to draw cartoons will never be in the MET or even framed in someone’s home, but it will be a way where I can still show people that I love and care for them.

So, huzzah for the C I got in Art 101 (already got into grad school sooooo) (UPDATE: I talked myself into an A-. I should be a lawyer). Huzzah for learning that talents don’t have to be extravagant. Huzzah for showing that even weaknesses can still be a talent for yourself.

It just depends on how you look at it.

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