Last Thursday, June 12, 2008 I officially became a Master of Fine Arts. All hail the master! Um….er…right. One nervous breakdown, a few grant proposals, and 3 temp jobs later I am finally comfortable in my new school-less lot in life. I wasn’t expecting fireworks or balloons even, but the anti-climactic post-graduation experience shocked me to the core.

The Monday after Pomp and Circumstance, I took a walk through my neighborhood pretending everything was the same. The Online Coffee Company was the same Online Coffee Company I’d written many research papers in, the Hot House Spa was the same Hot House Spa I’d spent many hours soaking with my girlfriends in. But there was something different about the way I was experiencing these places. I just couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

I realized that nothing was the same and that I’d been living in this city as a ghost resident for two years staying dry under the umbrella of graduate school. Though I made a consistent effort to make friends outside of the program and stay plugged in to the goings on in the city, I didn’t get the “real” taste of what it means to be a true Seattlite; graduate school is a very sheltered, private, introspective experience.

Over the last two years I learned to be with myself. I’ve always been a bit of a loner, a bit of an independent, but I think most of the privacy I’ve required can be chalked up to protecting myself from heartbreak, loneliness, and disappointment. I would try on different personalities, jobs, and hobbies, people even, but never really see any of them through to completion. In graduate school I didn’t have a choice. It was sink or float. I came face to face with my needs, habits, and insecurities as well as my joys and my cares. Alone in my studio or installation space I was faced with self-imposed challenges that I had to complete or at least investigate. These explorations became so much more than just work – the ways I dealt with the highs and lows of painting became a metaphor for the way I function in my daily life.

From my studio practice I learned that I hate not knowing whether or not the thing I’m pursuing will result in success. Ironically, this very struggle is the impetus for creating in the first place. If there were no struggle, no uncertainty to the outcome, no room for error, painting would be dead. It is my firm belief that an artist’s pursuit comes out of intense curiosity and a desire for surprise. There’s also a daredevil aspect to making art: you set up a scenario that guarantees excitement, dread, confusion, and disorientation and willingly surrender to it. You don’t know if you’ll make it out alive, but the thrill of the experience outweighs this minor concern.

This is where the metaphor for life part comes in. I live because I am curious, because I want to surprise and be surprised. It’s so enlightening to peel off my grad school goggles and see my city through fresh eyes. Everything feels comfortable, yet new. Like in my painting practice, I have moved through the oh-my-god-i-suck-that’ll-never-work phase and into the there-that’s-not-so-bad-opportunities-abound phase. By being patient and submitting to the nebulous nature of my situation I’ve been offered a few opportunities to show my work and have even started applying for grants and jobs. Like in my studio when I’m struggling with a painting, I accept that I don’t know how my new life will pan out. And I’m ok with that. Or at least I am right at this moment. I know this feeling will wax and wane as it does in and out of my studio.

This isn’t one of those “good things come to those who wait” stories because that would be sickening. Rather it’s one about a freshly crowned MFA coming to terms with herself, her practice, and her role in her new/old city.