Today we had to run some wiring for some new security cameras and that meant that we had to first move a lot of old "junk" out of the storage room. Among the boxes we moved was a couple of old portfolios from my days in Art School. Wow, the memories came rushing back.
You see, about a hundred and fifty years ago I went to what was then called "Commercial Art" school. Now it is known as graphic design. Back in those days we did the "fonts" by hand. Computers were not a thing, at least not a thing that everyone had access too, so we learned the old fashioned way - by hand.
I posted a few of the pics on my personal Facebook page which prompted someone to ask, "So whey did you stop?" There is a long story to that. I'll try not to bore you into a coma.
After high school I had plans to follow my dreams of being an artist. For as long as I could remember that was all I had ever wanted to be. Even when I was a really little kid I wanted to be an artist so that "I could be rich and give my money to poor people". Ha! The innocence of a child. I'm not sure why I thought artists were rich, but as I grew older it became much more clear that most artist were definitely not rich.
When I got out of high school I began attending the Art Academy of Cincinnati. It wasn't long before I realized I had made a mistake and was most likely in the wrong school. To make a longer story a little shorter, I switched schools and began attending a two-year program at the Central Academy of Commercial Art in Walnut Hills.
Central Academy of Commercial Art prepared you for the competitive and dog-eat-dog world of commercial art. Working in advertising was then pretty rough business. The school went year round and kept business hours rather than school hours. The Instructors there were sometimes brutal in their constructive criticism. They were not there to make you feel good about yourself or to give you false hopes of fame and fortune. They were there to toughen you up, and most importantly, to make you better.
I remember working on one ad campaign in watercolor and upon finishing it, I took it over to get approval to turn it in. The Instructor looked at it and said, "go get your big paint brush". I did so and returned to the Instructor. He then walked over to the sink, put my work under the running water and took the brush and literally washed my hard work down the drain. He then smiled and handed me a dripping wet, blank piece of canvas and said, "Do it again."
I did it again for a total of 5 more times. The last one I took to him and he said, "come to my office" I followed him wondering what hell awaited this time. He laid my piece of work down on his desk and asked if I thought it was good. I sheepishly said I felt it was pretty good. He then said, "It is good. In fact, the first one you did was very good ... but ... I knew you could do even better. If I had accepted the first one, you would have neve
r known how good you could be."
Yeah, brutal stuff. But GOOD stuff. I wish more people had Instructors like him. He was not well liked but he was doing an
amazing job of crafting young artists.
Somewhere toward the end of my first year I had a spiritual awakening. I began to take my long ignored walk with Jesus a lot more seriously. It was around then that I began to seek what He wanted me to do with my life. The idea that someday I would stand before God and answer for how I spent my time on earth mattered to me a great deal and I began to fear that all I would have to answer was that I had produced a lot of really good advertising campaigns. Somehow I wasn't sure that God would be satisficed with that answer. I know that I wasn't satisfied with it. I prayed a lot and very hard about it and sought out the council of every mature Christian I could find. They all answered that "God needed Christian commercial artists". I agree ... but ... I was still troubled about that. I can only guess that I was troubled because that was indeed not the direction I was meant to go.
Again, long story a little shorter, I dropped out of art school entirely, much to the disappointment of my Instructor who though I was among his best students. I applied for school at Anderson College to study social sciences.
Did I waste my "talent"? I sometimes wonder. And yet, I do think I still use it to a degree. Not with drawing so much, but with design. I think I have an eye for design and I do create images for various projects including for our church website and social media pages. And, I do crafts through my home based business The White Dog Co.
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