I found my college art portfolio from 20 years ago!

Every time I get the notion to de-clutter my house in some way it becomes a daunting task. Not because I don’t realize how wonderful it feels to rid yourself of things that don’t serve you any purpose and you are just storing because you might need it again someday, but because I know that although some is just junk there are several things that I am keeping because it has a memory attached and I can sit and get engulfed for hours reminiscing and revisiting the past. Photo albums?, Forget it, I have to sit and flip through every page and I know I should just put them aside as I will never actually throw away those photos and move on to more productive tasks but I never do. I better prepare to spend hours on this task yet also better realize I will get nothing accomplished. I look through every photo and laugh and cry and relive. This time though it wasn’t an album of pictures I came across, it was a portfolio. To be exact it was my portfolio from when I went to college. Black leather and now a little warped from all of the years of storage. At first I looked at it and wondered what could I possibly have kept? A little hesitant over opening it because I was young and fragile then, I know all the emotions attached to my college years and surely they would come flooding back as I unzipped the case and looked through who I was and how I interpreted the world at 18 years old.

A little flash back in time to explain how it all came to be…

In my final year of high school, I desperately searched for a passion, so I could have a clear path to furthering my education and picking a career, but I struggled. I talked to guidance counselors, I did quizzes I thought long and hard at what I would be good at but would also enjoy. I have always been and still am to this day incredibly indecisive. Too many options, too many variables, so many what if questions...ok, I’m an over thinker through and through and some things never change. Some people would advise me to “take a year off” to think about it but one thing I knew for sure about myself is that if I threw myself into the real world of working and paying bills and did not go to college or university I would probably never go back. There used to be a grade 13, an extra year; a buffer between or bridge between graduating and going off to higher levels of education. You could stay back, figure things out, redo credits or take advanced levels that would look better on a transcript for future applications. This option ended the year I was set to decide so that became a non option for me. I had to choose and fast. I decided finally that I would take a one year certificate art program because even if I never used it toward my future career, I would enjoy it, I would expand my creativity and I would immerse myself into college life and have a bit of time to figure things out from then on. I enrolled in an Introduction to Art program at an accredited college and was accepted so off I went.

At the time, stepping out of my comfort zone was hard. Each student entered college being good at what they know but as a professor quickly stated to us we were now at the bottom of the totem pole with our skill levels as everyone already attending the college had already been homing in on their talents and strengths to a great level of competency. He challenged us to take a walk through the hallways and observe other students hard at work but also the displays on the walls and in showcase boxes in the hallways. I did this, and wow was I ever intimidated, fascinated and inspired by what I observed. Now was time for us to explore several mediums and forms of artistic expression as opposed to sticking to only what we had known; for me this was pencil rendering. We took classes in art history, painting, sculpture making, photography, life drawing, technical drawing, 2d design and 3d design, colour theory and there were several electives offered such as silk screen printing, block printing and glass blowing to name a few.

^ how most of my sketch books looked growing up

One thing that became quite a challenge for me during my experience was being given certain criteria and assignments that seemed very regimented. For me, art meant expressing yourself in a way that was more subjective to the artist as opposed to objective to what the teacher’s expectations were. This, to be honest, changed my perspective quite a bit as I felt it took a lot of the fun and excitement out of creating, however, I was open and committed to learning new techniques and after all, it was school so there had to be measurable expectation and content for grading.

^ IE. fabric and egg rendering task

Or this project of using marker and pencil crayon to mimic different textures which was informative and a useful skill but...boring!

Now that you have a bit of history I can show you some of the items I found in my portfolio. There were many different projects from all the above-mentioned courses that I took but I picked a couple that stood out to me. Novice pieces that display the learning process and how I moved from pencil rendering to experimenting with different modalities.

Technical drawing: Analyzing all aspects of an ordinary object in it's 2D form to understand all proportion and components necessary to recreate it. This was interesting and challenging, required measurement and visual perception almost as though through x-ray vision.

These examples cover painting and life drawing. Painting and life drawing tied for my biggest challenges. I did not have much experience with painting techniques and in the first week of painting class I felt very inferior to the rest of my classmates that could "whip off" a painting in a half an hour flat and could mix colours effortlessly. I do recall throwing a bit of a toddler tantrum and storming out of the class passing through the easels of excellence. (I laugh about it now) I did improve with painting over the course of the year but it still remains my least favourite. This dry brush technique was one I found interesting. Life drawing was so much more difficult than object drawing for me. The perspective and proportion of the human body is so much more complex, especially facial features. I would say though that watching the live models provided us as students, with the opportunity to learn from a real life perspective while exposing themselves in such a personal way. I wouldn't have ever thought that it would inspire me 10 years later to offer myself as a plus sized nude model for a local art program and the artists were equally thankful for me to be there as drawing skeletons can become routine but a human form with shape and dimension is so much more informative and interesting.

(the dry brush technique)

( I call this "The Original Selfie")

Also dry brush technique but we were meant to do a design of our dream bedroom with ourselves in it. Funny enough, I do have that bedspread ensemble, those slippers and those purple walls in my room today ;)

The blended use of pencil, pencil crayons and markers to achieve a desired look, texture or realistic feel. These techniques would be useful in graphic design to represent a realistic look without using photography. The professor of this class used to draw vehicles so he needed to render several different materials like leather, plastic, chrome, metal, rubber and glass. He was a master at this and his work was very hard to tell if it was hand drawn or a photograph. Mine are not that realistic..not even close but just to show you that I tried.

Sculpture: We tried many different mediums for sculpture including, clay, wire, recycled items, plaster and wax but my favourite sculpture, although it was very challenging, is the one shown below. The challenge of this project was to use corrugated cardboard only and depict a 3d model of a person doing an activity. It needed to be free standing and balanced. I put a lot of work into the design and intricacies of this sculpture and when it came to painting it (of course I chose purple) It went completely soggy and fell apart requiring me to do a lot of damage control. I put many hours into this piece. It stood about four feet tall and it rode with me on submission day in my car. During the 60 kilometer drive from my home to the campus, I think I held my breath the entire time. I just wanted it to get there in one, free-standing piece until evaluation, and it made it and I got an A!

This was another technical drawing almost like a blueprint. The thumbnail drawings were to break down item into sections that focused on each detail it took to make the item a whole. The reason I like this one is because to me looking back it, I see humour that I chose this specific item. Almost as though it was a premonition that art would be short lived and I would later become an Aesthetician. (because that's what happened)

There were so many items that I have not shown but this post would be so much longer than it already is. (thanks for the patience) but lastly, I found attached to a project submission, a conclusion that I wrote and I thought it would be appropriate to share those thoughts from all those years ago.

My response to my 18-year-oldself and that conclusion is that I am in fact reminiscing not 10 but 20 years later and although I am not laughing about how amateur I was, and I have not directly pursued a career in art like I had originally hoped; I am proud of the effort I put into learning new things and you know what? In a lot of ways, the creativity and skills gained did help me to flourish in many ways through out the last 20 years. Now I use my creative ways to do crafts with my kids, make homemade costumes and teaching them to explore their creative sides and view the world like their own personal canvas. To me that has served more valuable than any specific career. After all, every experience in life is a stepping stone to where we will go in the future and at that time in my life I had no idea where my future would lead me but now I am looking back and have pleasantly enjoyed reflecting on that time of my life and how I grew as an individual from that point forward.

Thank you for taking that journey back in time with me. As foreshadowed, I got nothing accomplished in the way of purging and organizing my extra stuff but coming across my portfolio led me to creating this post and for me that is still a productive use of my time. :)