End of an era

Yesterday was so Art College I had to take a step back and try to comprehend what I was seeing. It was the last day of Sculpture, and everyone was showing off their final projects to the class. I wish every day could have been like this one--no working, no staring at a wall trying to think of something great, no hiding from my classmates, horrified at the idea that they might want to have a conversation (!) with ME (!!), no ambling from room to room and floor to floor trying to kill time--just walking around and talking about everyone else's work. For once I wasn't afraid to say what I really thought about other people's projects because there was guaranteed to be at least one person more pretentious than I was, and that was a huge load off my chest. One of the "suggestions" (art teachers don't like the word "rules") for this project was to stretch the conventional meaning of "sculpture", and my goodness did some people stretch. It was exciting to see what each person did differently; one person made a series of instructional pamphlets telling us how to make sure the oven is off, the OCD way; another tied belts around a fellow student's hands, feet, and eyes and placed him in the middle of a circle of chairs, where we were invited to sit. There was the dude who spread cedar boughs on the floor and sang a song with the lights off, the girl who sat in front of a projection of "Labyrinth" and wrote for the duration of a Perfect Circle song, the two people who set up an installation in the girl's washroom including a huge stuffed dog, a plank of pink styrofoam, a lava lamp, baby blankets, a mirror and a recording of approaching footsteps. There was the mother who put a car door and suitcases up against a wall and projected a video of her journey from Calgary to Cochrane and back. There was the girl who made a tiny replica of a tree and hung it in front of a black-and-white slide projection of the mountains, using the tree's shadow as an element. There was the graduate student who made a tiny neighbourhood out of plaster and covered it with a picture of a house that was recently torn down. There was so much variety, and for a few minutes I found myself thinking, this is what art colleges are for. Everything was experimental, and unlike anything I'd seen before. It was genuinely exciting to see what other people had created, and for once I wasn't embarrassed about what I had to contribute.

Oh, and everyone got to take home AT LEAST ONE Terry's Chocolate Orange. Score.