Paths - sometimes they twist and sometimes they bend, sometimes you feel like you have been going in the same direction forever. In this journey called life, there are a multitude of paths from which to chose and no clear sign telling you that you are going in the right direction.
There are no rights and wrongs, just a million shades of different.
The only way to figure out which road to take is by heading where you think you want to go. Still, figuring this out is easier said than done.
Robert Frost believed that taking the road less travelled would make all the difference, and though a beautiful poem it is, Mr. Frost, it does not make this path-choosing business any easier.
My peers and I are on a path to becoming creative professionals, which type and how successful (and how that success is determined) is still a mystery. My path as I thought it would be when I arrived at college, doe-eyed and naive nearly three long years ago, was on the fast track to becoming an independent successful studio artist. Filled with self-belief and total optimism, I could not imagine not accomplishing all I set out to. The future was so far away but I felt knew I was headed in the right direction.
Two and a half years later, that self-belief and optimism have faded into something I believe you could call relentless terror.
Weekly reality checks and scoldings (in the form of highbrow critiques) have brought me down to the ground, and dare I say, at times, a little sunken into it.
What was once a world overwhelming with possibilities and adventures has become crowded with fear, uncertainty and the marks left on the ground by so many before me who have tried and failed.
Neck-deep in sand, so many sink into this creative landscape called art school, carcasses never to be found. Yet art (and life, for that matter) has always been fraught with the voices of critique and guidance:
"This is the right way!"
"You cannot do it like that!"
This advice is never unanimous and, at a certain, point you have to decide which voices to heed and which ones to respectfully tune out. In the case of art school, it is a matter of sifting criticism after criticism, deciding which ones have value to you. Ultimately, we cannot please everyone, so it is a matter of deciding who you want to please and, more importantly, who you want to be.
When you are a student weighed down by debt collectors and unpaid bills, the world feels less like your oyster and more like a clam shell you have somehow trapped yourself in. It is so easy to bury yourself, acquiring all the accoutrements this life has to offer, stocking up your arsenal for the materials you will need to take the world by storm. Yet in your heart of hearts, you know (like every student on loans) that you have taken a choice, gone down a road, and that you will see it through, even if that means sacrifices along the way.
My path is not without doubts, my path is not without sacrifice, and it is certainly not straight and narrow. Like my peers, I am filled with doubt and trepidation. And though it may not be as easy as I initially hoped to take over the world, each morning when I wake, I look behind me and realize that I have moved forward, and that is a fantastic feeling.
Naomi Yorke is a Port Coquitlam student who lived in Shanghai, China for four years, writing about her experiences twice a month for The Tri-City News. She now lives in Chicago, where she's attending art school, and continues her column.
