By Osiel Ocampo
Listen Listen Listen to My Finest Hour and Doechii – GTFO (Audio) I couldn’t decide nor should I.
Confession time: I’ve never actually read My Year of Rest and Relaxation, however, I thought It’d make for an excellent title.
I’ve often found myself, like clockwork, reciting “I’m basically in art school this semester” when anyone asks me about nearly anything. Without a doubt, I find ways to bring it up, prompted and unprompted. I jokingly think to myself, I fought for this. As if all of my past semesters were grueling and blistering. While some were, they were not all for nothing, I needed them to make this Fall semester a reality, my reality.
I am proud of being in “art school,” and of being an art major. Even then I still struggle with feelings of shame and disillusionment around my major. For starters what is even art/Art? Who gets to be an artist? Do I even want to be one? What am I even doing? Why does it all sometimes feel so immensely silly and unserious? All of this rushes through my head as I sheepishly introduce myself as an art major. All that being said I also get elated, euphoric even, when I disclose my art major. I smirk and tuck my hair à la Debby Ryan in Radio Rebel.
I’m currently taking The Chair – Explorations of the Speculative and the Pragmatic, Contemporary Topics in Painting, Printmaking Studio, Junior/Senior Art Major Seminar, Workshop in Hand Press Printing, and Plants, Culture, Magic. That’s a lot of classes, I’m fully aware, however, I’m taking my first ever Harvey Mudd College class (Workshop in Hand Press Printing) and an amazing Spanish class at Scripps College (Plants, Culture, Magic) where I get to makes things (this past week we made tortillas from corn we ground in class!).
I’m basically in art school this semester. In Chair, I learn to use the jointer, the planer, the chop saw, the bandsaw, the drill press, and so much more. In Contemporary Topics, melted plastic bags become my canvas as I thickly apply white oil paint, finishing it off by sewing on it. In Printmaking, I make linoleum reduction prints of corn and screen prints of half toned corn kernels.
In Seminar, I make piñatas using engrudo (a glue mixture using flour and water) and I crochet with fishing line making a headpiece. In Workshop, I meticulously print Gloria Anzaldúa’s words on decades and centuries old machines, letter by letter. In Plants, Culture, Magic, when we’re not making tinctures and cooking mushrooms, I prepare to lead a pine needle basket weaving workshop for the class.
I’m basically in art school this semester and I’d have it no other way. I have tremendous access to all sorts of tools and resources, professors and peers included. On weary late nights at the Studio Art Hall, when I’m hanging on by a thread, I know I’ll run into friends and that cheer is always around the corner.