"We live here!"

The term is over and I survived. I think I did ok, considering how desperately unfamiliar everything I learned was. The sleep deprivation has caught up; every time I sit down I start dozing. I know they do this deliberately- cram everything possible into us as fast as possible and intellectual comfort be damned- but I'm not sure I'm wired to learn well this way. I certainly know I need to spend a good part of the holiday break re-learning a bunch of programs I only scratched the surface of.

Here's my digital final-- I absorbed just enough to realize I don't know anything. But the dresses were fun!

The dragon was fun too

And here are a couple of rug designs that I was quite happy with:

The formal one

The not formal one

I'll upload a video about all the products if I ever figure out how to do that. Each product has to be accompanied by a video, and that took forever. I know nothing about videos, and my cat wouldn't even cooperate when I needed him to look confused. There's another thing to work on over break! (filmmaking, not confusing the cat. He's confused enough by life). 

And here's my final display, almost done: 

It occurred to me that these are the colors of the house I grew up in

I think what kept me going is the sense that this work is actually going to pay off. There are jobs and opportunities out there for people with MIDs, and this could all be building up to a consistently interesting career. That sense of possibility was completely absent in art school. 

I went to Philadelphia twice (planning weeks in advance so I could spare the time off, and it still meant an extra late night or three) and each time the knot of tension that I carry behind my sternum quietly melted away. It was so nice to see my friends and the dear, calm, unpretentious city. I miss riding only a mile or two to anywhere I like, and I miss having a network of bikey nerds, I miss house shows and late nights spent NOT working. Since the past three months have been spent buried in the studio I have not had a chance to fall properly back in love with NYC. There's another thing to do before Spring term...

After the last final, crammed into a taxi with a bunch of colleagues on the way from one celebration to another, I saw Manhattan rising splendidly across the river. And all of us, from our many corners of the world, were struck with a sense of amazement. 

"We live here," we said, wondering and smiling. "We live here!" 

Isis