For many years before I got to high school, I made use of visual arts as a way to channel my fairly frequent rages and frustrations. I wouldn't say I was particularly talented in any particular form of art, and was awful at accepting instruction in developing technique. But I made and I built, and I built and I made. Often I'd just chuck it out, but art had a purpose in my life.
In Grade 9, I elected to take art studio. The teacher had us do an exercise on our first day in class. We stood one at a time, all around the tables, to show what we had made, introduce and explain.
I stood and showed my work, and was explaining what it was about. The teacher stopped me.
"You cannot do art," he said. Then he opened the door and said, "Get out."
Maybe I should have stayed. Perhaps I could have refused to go. I might have worked so hard, to prove him wrong. But I didn't do any of those things. I folded, like the famous cheap lawn chair. I dragged my ass all the way up around the tables, and past him out into the hallway.
To this day, I want to be a creative. I want to make collages. But I always pull up and wince when I think of how ruined I felt that day, when I was told I couldn't do art.
Skapi
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