4th Year Studio Art Major Exhibition

"It's like the equivalent of your thesis," explained D, as she carefully placed sliced strawberries on top of whipped cream and double fudge brownies. I was slicing tomatoes in our friend's kitchen, which another friend placed between two slices of rye bread smothered in red pepper hummus. We were helping out for D's art exhibition yesterday.

Being an art major was something I considered. In fact, art school was a serious consideration for me. RISD, Pratt, FIT, Parsons, Cooper Union... all of those were common buzzwords amongst my friends who were preparing their portfolios. I loved art and I had dedication. Why not?

The why-not came in the form of opportunity cost (see post on April 17th for an explanation about opportunity costs.). I had received a perfect SAT score according to the 1600 scale and was 80 points off from a perfect score on the 2400 scale. The SAT scores of the middle 50% of incoming class of RISD was 1690-2050, and for FIT... you probably didn't even have to take the SATs. If opportunity cost is the cost of not taking the next best choice, for me the opportunity cost of art school was research universities and liberal arts colleges. It was too big of an opportunity cost. In layman's terms, if I went to art school, I would be missing out on too many other opportunities that I could have had at research universities and liberal arts colleges. Essentially, I had to be absolutely sure that art school was right for me, and I wasn't sure.

Now that I am at UVA, an established research university, would it have made sense to major in art? After all my reasoning, the answer is no.

Having said all that, I absolutely envied my friend D as she rushed to prepare her exhibition. Perhaps she should have looked into a career in event planning, because she was making the most of her physical and human capital in getting this event together.

The 4th Year Studio Art major exhibition was fantastic. We explored three floors of art, people, cheese, and drinks in Ruffin Hall, the newly built building for studio art. I fell in love with one of my friend's wood printing pieces (actually the set, but I'm too poor for a set), and so I decided to purchase one. I'll take a picture of it when I make the transaction. (Note to the art connoisseurs out there: never go for the listed pricing. I would start bargaining at half... sometimes less than half. A good example is the one that I will buy: the listing was $220. Due to the fact that we were friends, she said she would sell it to me for less than $100. I know she made the frame, which would normally cost $50, but because she made it it costs about $25.)

I suppose pictures of the art exhibits would convey absolutely more than my words, but sadly I did not think we could take pictures of it and I was too forgetful. I will try my best to describe D's exhibition.

D's exhibition was on the ground floor of Ruffin, the bottom floor was dark with no windows, and spotlights haloed her paintings on silk. She had gone to high school in Japan and learned the Japanese tea ceremony there. The subject of her exhibit were hands, drawn in the brush-style that she had learned in a study abroad program in Hong Kong, pouring tea. The theme was brilliantly conveyed as sequences of these delicate hands pouring tea, outlined in bold black ink. Then in the center, she had at least nine female figures in similar sitting positions. They were clothed in the stiff, ceremonial costume associated with the tea ceremony. At a first glance, it looks like they are all replicas, but after close examination, you realize that they are different moments of the tea ceremony. For example, one drawing showed the woman placing a sweet in her mouth, which D explained to me happens because the tea is so bitter. I really enjoyed her fusion of her passion for tea, the techniques she learned in Hong Kong, and her painting style.

THERE ARE LESS THAN 15 SCHOOL DAYS LEFT AHHHHHHHHH

Now that the title got your attention, FEEL MY PANIC. It's the breathe before the dive, people. Before deadlines hit. BAM BAM BAM! Before exams start. BAM BAM BAM! Before physical ailments spring up. BAM BAM BAM! Before people graduate. ....uh, I don't have a sound effect for that.

It's the glorious time of the year when the weather lightens up and even at 7am it is light outside. The UVA campus is glorious in its pink-flowered trees and fragrant azalea bushes. Even looking at The Week in Photos, you spy at least two photographs centered on flowers and trees, and a couple others with them peeking in the background. If you visit with Days on the Lawn or a random campus visit around this time, you'll be astounded by the beauty. I know I was when I first came.

Okay, I need to stop being so nostalgic now that I'm going to be a third year. Oh, you prospective students, enjoy life. Before I end my reminiscences, I want to point out that because this time of the year is about transitions, it also brings nostalgia and longing. Exhibit A is an email that one of my best friends sent me. The title was "and we thought they were so cool then...", and her body said "if your feeling anxious about the future, remember, change is good :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=is6gtilerPk&feature=channel." Oh, Justin...

At 11am, I am going to go to the PURSUIT Conference. An 8-hour day affair, the Conference will take up my valuable time for studying. And I think it's absolutely worth it. On Thursday, a visiting Professor from University of Illinois commented that she was amazed when she realized that the time spent and knowledge learned from Professors is only a small fraction of the knowledge we learn in college. In fact, one could argue that the time in classrooms competes with time that could be spent in conferences, listening to guest speakers, and other ways of "learning." For those of you who have taken economics, think about opportunity cost. For those of you haven't, I recommend taking at least an intro economics class AND I will explain. :) For every activity that you do, there is a next best choice. For example, I am currently typing out this entry for half an hour now. That half an hour could have been spent searching for breakfast. Or it could have been spent starting on my ethnographic research paper. Instead, I choose typing this entry out, because I found more value in doing so than the others. (Or I am procrastinating... you decide.)

I applied for summer Resident Adviser and summer Senior Resident. Hopefully I receive one of the positions, because I will be here all summer long. Perhaps I am mellowing out, because this will be my second summer in Charlottesville.

On a random note, someone told me that people read my blog! Hello hello! Please post a comment!