So many rivers, so many bridges
Dec. 15th, 2007 01:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lenora_roseI've been wondering one of those big usual questions that plague people at times. It's simple and complicated at once. Where should I go from here?
The plan going back to school was to go through the faculty of education, become a teacher, ideally of high school. The call to go back was strong, and loud, and in spite of my brother's bad experience with the faculty (not with teaching), and a number of other people, including someone I would call a natural born teacher hating the actual university courses. I received words of support from a number of people who were of the opinion I'd make a good teacher; family, family-in-law, church members, some other friends, Colin... Corny as the line is, it seemed very much like God was pointing me this way.
Then, of course, I didn't get into the faculty, either because even with my new year of A's, my GPA still wasn't up to it (Their stated reason - and not as unfeasible as I'd like it to be.) or because of my last minute scramble to produce my application, resulting in less than ideal letters of reference and a wince-worthy autobiography.
I wasn't sure if a second year of non-education classes -- none of which i need for the faculty -- would count as too much self-indulgence, a chance to boost my GPA more, or a way to look good for the application (See! I'm still able and willing to learn!) But Colin was supportive, and I was careful not to be too excessive with the classes; I opted for a two-day-a-week schedule to make it easier to keep working, and I didn't take the music courses that were calling to me that would be a lot of outlay of time and money for not much academic good and no proof I'd stick with it enough to make its other benefits worthwhile. Plus, and maybe I shouldn't admit this, I tend to get B grades in studio courses. Hard when trying to push up the GPA.
Except, of course, I didn't resist the siren song of ceramics. It had a major advantage; I've been doing it for a while. It had a proven track record as a thing to keep me sane.
But I've been doing it in small doses, especially the last handful of years when the city leisure courses priced themselves outside of my range for what I got out of them, and Colin's living room is less conducive a workspace than the apartment living room was, (or at least than I made the apartment living room be).
Ceramics has been like an explosion across my brain, and now it's awake and roaring. I've been pushing myself, ending up exhausted, sore-eyed, and far too much out of contact even with my husband. Some of that is school deadlines rather than my own, I concede.*
But exhausted, insufficiently exercised, occasionally forgetting food or letting msyelf dehydrate, locked in my anti-social little space... Stuck spending hours with glue-covered fingers, putting on scale after scale, getting stabbed by juniper, carving the same spirals over and over on another cup...
... There's no word for it but joy.
It felt right. The throwing, the trimming. The carving. The little nitpicky detailing. Going back to school felt good, if self-indulgent and a bit nostalgic. Getting back into pottery at this level felt more like finding a place I belonged.
And there's been this thought process ticking over in my head. Like this:
Heck, I could do this. I could even do it with a three-pronged approach. Jill and Alan can probably both give me some tips on the application process for craft fairs, above and beyond what the craft fairs themselves provide, and helping Jill has certainly shown me how much small behind the scenes work there is to the selling aspect. Steve can tell me more than I already know about promoting myself to art galleries. So can Alan, actually, especially as he does small scale shows in the city. And I already know the whole science fiction routine, even if I haven't been to a lot of cons lately. And I know people to ask about it, too.
And then I realise that's *not* the sort of thinking you do for a hobby you hope to make you a little money. That's thinking that assumes I'm still working two days a week, maybe three, at some low-paying office job, and devoting all my non-writing time to trying to make a go of this.
My traitorous mind adds, I haven't forgotten writing, either. But if you're working from home or a set studio, at your own pace, without these other distracting classes, you'll have time to write again. I have a whole slew of characters who are with me on this one. Want to hear from them for a while?
I remind myself that this isn't exactly the sort of reliable income one wants if one is considering children. There are grants and advances, of course, but acceptances for either are dubious and both are one shot relief. Plus, deadly chemicals and pregnancy may not mix.** No; what that wants is a reliable income that's high enough to matter. A teacher's salary is no great thing, especially if she were part time, but it's more than an office drudge of my level. So, teaching it should be. Unless I have any other bright ideas?
But there, the traitor mind goes an again. But if you get your own wheel, it's all work from home. The computer and the dana and the wheel and the handbuilding. Of course, it will be hard with an infant - you can assume your creative time will be nil with a baby -- but would it be any less so than trying to make do on maternity leave? And it's more income than if you don't qualify for maternity leave at all.
At which point, I remind myself of something else. Sure, my brain is telling me all this now. It doesn't mean it will last. It's happened a few times that I've gone gung ho for an idea for a while, then lost the urgency, then the desire, then the interest.*** So far, the one thing that hasn't happened to is writing (and possibly archery). Thus, for instance, my simultaneous interest in learning a musical instrument and unwillingness to put forth the money or time. If the fancy goes away, it's wasted time and money -- at a time when I'm already being a drain on time and finances due to schooling.
But beyond even that, another feeling had been creeping in. Since I put in my application last February. Since I got the rejection. And I've been encountering more people trying to decide where their lives were going, including one who learned through some volunteer experience that teaching would definitely not be for her. Another girl who wants to do it more than anything. And I've been finding I have a lot more fellow-feeling for the first than the second.
In short, I'm not sure I want to become a teacher. And I can't tell if that's the fancy going away, as above, impatience at the delay, or doubts I've had all along coming into their own.
So I looked around for other practical course I could take, to put me into another career that isn't going to leave me a permanent office drone. Professordom in any field in the arts would require me to get a whole 'nother bachelor's, never mind master's and possibly PhD. I'm not in it for that long a haul. A Master's in Fine Arts puts me in the same place a Bachelor's does, as far as art galleries, craft fairs and cons are concerned, and though it may add the option of becoming a professor as well, I doubt the time dedication would be worth it, especially as it would require moving.
A friend of mine (Hi, taleisin) is taking a library tech course... but if I were to opt for that, without going all the way for librarian, does a tech really make more than what I'm making, and would it be more fulfilling than what I'm doing? Would it be enough more secure to warrant taking two years now to do it?
All through this essay, too, there's been another factor running. The biological one. I look at my desire to show someone young and new all the things I think are cool in the world, yes, but... the question has been coming to me now; do I want to show classrooms of kids, this, or *a* child or two, with whom I spend a lot of time? My body isn't giving me "Want babies!!!" signals (I have friends whose bodies are), but there is only so much time. And while my reactions to Senekal's daughter -- and other infants and toddlers of my acquaintance -- are sometimes mixed, and uncomfortable, the mix isn't as negative as it used to be. I'm starting to notice a hint of change, and I wonder if the hormones won't start crying for reproduction in the next year or two.
And that's where I am.
Currently, the decision has been not to decide. More specifically, that I would put in the applications for the Universities again, with better letters of reference and spruced up stuff, and see what comes of them. Which I guess is putting it in God's hands. Of course, it might be better if the replies were quicker than mid-July, giving me more chance to switch gears, apply for a different faculty if that need be, or work on assembling equipment otherwise. But I figure my chances of choosing the path I want are better if I keep the paths open. However bad that metaphor may be.
Nor am I exactly certain God is inclined to send unmixed signals. Consider how I got to this moment. I can readily believe that -- if the nudge back to school was at all Godly and not my own restless brain, a desire to regain renaissance, a little brother-envy, and a dead-end job -- God would point me back to school to plonk me into ceramics, as into teaching. The artwork is a defining part of my identity, but getting neglected, perhaps atrophied. It's just as feasible for Him to be nudging me back towards what was being lost, as to bid me take a wholly new path. (actually, it would fit my personal guess as to how God tries to guide people more, really, to point someone back to what they've lost than to tell them to go and be new. I concede, he occasionally did the latter to prophets... of which I am not one.)
______________
*I've always needed or wanted deadlines to get art done; it was the reason I focused so much on writing; it makes its demands without deadlines. This need for a deadline was the main reason I bothered to enter the Keycon art show when I did; it gave me a deadline I couldn't break. But that's another discussion.
**Granted, it's very easy to take successful preventative measures on this one and still do pottery. Wet clay's not a danger on that front, and I could be making much better use of the dust mask when dealing with the dry stuff, and I *do* use a mask when mixing clay or glazes.
*** In spite of terminology, I must specify that this does not apply to humans or other living creatures.
The plan going back to school was to go through the faculty of education, become a teacher, ideally of high school. The call to go back was strong, and loud, and in spite of my brother's bad experience with the faculty (not with teaching), and a number of other people, including someone I would call a natural born teacher hating the actual university courses. I received words of support from a number of people who were of the opinion I'd make a good teacher; family, family-in-law, church members, some other friends, Colin... Corny as the line is, it seemed very much like God was pointing me this way.
Then, of course, I didn't get into the faculty, either because even with my new year of A's, my GPA still wasn't up to it (Their stated reason - and not as unfeasible as I'd like it to be.) or because of my last minute scramble to produce my application, resulting in less than ideal letters of reference and a wince-worthy autobiography.
I wasn't sure if a second year of non-education classes -- none of which i need for the faculty -- would count as too much self-indulgence, a chance to boost my GPA more, or a way to look good for the application (See! I'm still able and willing to learn!) But Colin was supportive, and I was careful not to be too excessive with the classes; I opted for a two-day-a-week schedule to make it easier to keep working, and I didn't take the music courses that were calling to me that would be a lot of outlay of time and money for not much academic good and no proof I'd stick with it enough to make its other benefits worthwhile. Plus, and maybe I shouldn't admit this, I tend to get B grades in studio courses. Hard when trying to push up the GPA.
Except, of course, I didn't resist the siren song of ceramics. It had a major advantage; I've been doing it for a while. It had a proven track record as a thing to keep me sane.
But I've been doing it in small doses, especially the last handful of years when the city leisure courses priced themselves outside of my range for what I got out of them, and Colin's living room is less conducive a workspace than the apartment living room was, (or at least than I made the apartment living room be).
Ceramics has been like an explosion across my brain, and now it's awake and roaring. I've been pushing myself, ending up exhausted, sore-eyed, and far too much out of contact even with my husband. Some of that is school deadlines rather than my own, I concede.*
But exhausted, insufficiently exercised, occasionally forgetting food or letting msyelf dehydrate, locked in my anti-social little space... Stuck spending hours with glue-covered fingers, putting on scale after scale, getting stabbed by juniper, carving the same spirals over and over on another cup...
... There's no word for it but joy.
It felt right. The throwing, the trimming. The carving. The little nitpicky detailing. Going back to school felt good, if self-indulgent and a bit nostalgic. Getting back into pottery at this level felt more like finding a place I belonged.
And there's been this thought process ticking over in my head. Like this:
Heck, I could do this. I could even do it with a three-pronged approach. Jill and Alan can probably both give me some tips on the application process for craft fairs, above and beyond what the craft fairs themselves provide, and helping Jill has certainly shown me how much small behind the scenes work there is to the selling aspect. Steve can tell me more than I already know about promoting myself to art galleries. So can Alan, actually, especially as he does small scale shows in the city. And I already know the whole science fiction routine, even if I haven't been to a lot of cons lately. And I know people to ask about it, too.
And then I realise that's *not* the sort of thinking you do for a hobby you hope to make you a little money. That's thinking that assumes I'm still working two days a week, maybe three, at some low-paying office job, and devoting all my non-writing time to trying to make a go of this.
My traitorous mind adds, I haven't forgotten writing, either. But if you're working from home or a set studio, at your own pace, without these other distracting classes, you'll have time to write again. I have a whole slew of characters who are with me on this one. Want to hear from them for a while?
I remind myself that this isn't exactly the sort of reliable income one wants if one is considering children. There are grants and advances, of course, but acceptances for either are dubious and both are one shot relief. Plus, deadly chemicals and pregnancy may not mix.** No; what that wants is a reliable income that's high enough to matter. A teacher's salary is no great thing, especially if she were part time, but it's more than an office drudge of my level. So, teaching it should be. Unless I have any other bright ideas?
But there, the traitor mind goes an again. But if you get your own wheel, it's all work from home. The computer and the dana and the wheel and the handbuilding. Of course, it will be hard with an infant - you can assume your creative time will be nil with a baby -- but would it be any less so than trying to make do on maternity leave? And it's more income than if you don't qualify for maternity leave at all.
At which point, I remind myself of something else. Sure, my brain is telling me all this now. It doesn't mean it will last. It's happened a few times that I've gone gung ho for an idea for a while, then lost the urgency, then the desire, then the interest.*** So far, the one thing that hasn't happened to is writing (and possibly archery). Thus, for instance, my simultaneous interest in learning a musical instrument and unwillingness to put forth the money or time. If the fancy goes away, it's wasted time and money -- at a time when I'm already being a drain on time and finances due to schooling.
But beyond even that, another feeling had been creeping in. Since I put in my application last February. Since I got the rejection. And I've been encountering more people trying to decide where their lives were going, including one who learned through some volunteer experience that teaching would definitely not be for her. Another girl who wants to do it more than anything. And I've been finding I have a lot more fellow-feeling for the first than the second.
In short, I'm not sure I want to become a teacher. And I can't tell if that's the fancy going away, as above, impatience at the delay, or doubts I've had all along coming into their own.
So I looked around for other practical course I could take, to put me into another career that isn't going to leave me a permanent office drone. Professordom in any field in the arts would require me to get a whole 'nother bachelor's, never mind master's and possibly PhD. I'm not in it for that long a haul. A Master's in Fine Arts puts me in the same place a Bachelor's does, as far as art galleries, craft fairs and cons are concerned, and though it may add the option of becoming a professor as well, I doubt the time dedication would be worth it, especially as it would require moving.
A friend of mine (Hi, taleisin) is taking a library tech course... but if I were to opt for that, without going all the way for librarian, does a tech really make more than what I'm making, and would it be more fulfilling than what I'm doing? Would it be enough more secure to warrant taking two years now to do it?
All through this essay, too, there's been another factor running. The biological one. I look at my desire to show someone young and new all the things I think are cool in the world, yes, but... the question has been coming to me now; do I want to show classrooms of kids, this, or *a* child or two, with whom I spend a lot of time? My body isn't giving me "Want babies!!!" signals (I have friends whose bodies are), but there is only so much time. And while my reactions to Senekal's daughter -- and other infants and toddlers of my acquaintance -- are sometimes mixed, and uncomfortable, the mix isn't as negative as it used to be. I'm starting to notice a hint of change, and I wonder if the hormones won't start crying for reproduction in the next year or two.
And that's where I am.
Currently, the decision has been not to decide. More specifically, that I would put in the applications for the Universities again, with better letters of reference and spruced up stuff, and see what comes of them. Which I guess is putting it in God's hands. Of course, it might be better if the replies were quicker than mid-July, giving me more chance to switch gears, apply for a different faculty if that need be, or work on assembling equipment otherwise. But I figure my chances of choosing the path I want are better if I keep the paths open. However bad that metaphor may be.
Nor am I exactly certain God is inclined to send unmixed signals. Consider how I got to this moment. I can readily believe that -- if the nudge back to school was at all Godly and not my own restless brain, a desire to regain renaissance, a little brother-envy, and a dead-end job -- God would point me back to school to plonk me into ceramics, as into teaching. The artwork is a defining part of my identity, but getting neglected, perhaps atrophied. It's just as feasible for Him to be nudging me back towards what was being lost, as to bid me take a wholly new path. (actually, it would fit my personal guess as to how God tries to guide people more, really, to point someone back to what they've lost than to tell them to go and be new. I concede, he occasionally did the latter to prophets... of which I am not one.)
______________
*I've always needed or wanted deadlines to get art done; it was the reason I focused so much on writing; it makes its demands without deadlines. This need for a deadline was the main reason I bothered to enter the Keycon art show when I did; it gave me a deadline I couldn't break. But that's another discussion.
**Granted, it's very easy to take successful preventative measures on this one and still do pottery. Wet clay's not a danger on that front, and I could be making much better use of the dust mask when dealing with the dry stuff, and I *do* use a mask when mixing clay or glazes.
*** In spite of terminology, I must specify that this does not apply to humans or other living creatures.
