Home on the Range
The Art Center Burnout™ is a cold hard fact of life. From the innocent and naive view of a first termer, two and a half years straight through is a cake walk. For anyone not familiar with the system, Art Center goes by 14 week terms, year round. In the very beginning they tell you it takes 8 to graduate—three terms a year equals two and a half years of creatively stimulated bliss. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.
As it turns out, everyone is lying to you through their teeth. Pesky little things like car crashes and needing to sleep every once in a while seem to make this task nearly impossible (although a few have done it). After the traumas of last term there was no question about my particular level of burnout. But this term was supposed to be better. With the theme of Just Make it Pretty, I set it up so that I wouldn’t have too many classes that required me to go on a brainbender. But alas, my work has still been mediocre, forced, and probably pretty boring. When did design become like pulling teeth?
I thought I was a design machine—that sleep was unnecessary and having to do it made me weak. Things like going to bed or taking the afternoon off are simply unacceptable, and when I inevitably succumb to one of these earthling tasks I beat myself up. The problem is, when you live with this attitude for too long, your body will eventually start to hate you. Everyone has a breaking point, and mine seems to be right around now. I took an internship after my fourth term, and planned to do another one in the fall as “breaks”. You would think that I would understand at 40 hours a week working in Beverly Hills or New York City isn’t exactly R&R, but remember, I’m a design machine.
Let it be known here and now, I am not a machine. Turns out, something had to give, and it was looking a lot like my sanity was going to be the first casualty. With two terms of classes left to graduate, boring and mediocre just don’t cut it. I need inspiration, rejuvenation, and little bit of sleep god dammit—or my graduating portfolio is going to look just as tired as I do.
So, here’s the plan:
I’m going to spend my summer term living in this:
Working for these people (two Art Center alums) on a little project called HOERAG (more on that later), doing an independent study (including a lot of photography and writing) with this guy, and maybe eating a few of these:
Edison, Washington is a town of 133 people (yes, that’s even less than my alma mater, the world’s smallest highschool) where my parents own 40 acres of farmland. It’s a quirky artist’s enclave surrounded by miles and miles of agriculture. It doesn’t get much more rural than Skagit County (population density 59 people per square mile). They have promised me a few chickens, a few farm responsibilities, and all the peace and quiet I can possibly handle. I’m even going to trade work for vegetables and ride my bike everywhere. How much more idyllic and quaint can life possibly be?
Now if I can just survive the next three weeks…
