Time to Make Decisions

So, I've decided to sign up for a drawing class at ACAD. It runs from January to April, every Saturday morning.

I have always wanted to go to art school - my whole life. But it was never the practical choice. I remember my mother telling me at a very early age, that I couldn't be an artist, because artists are poor and unhappy.

I thought for most of my life that I'd be a teacher, but my life went in a different direction, and I wound up working in an office. I've worked for the same company for 7 years. I'm a pipeline risk assessment technician.

They tell me I'm good. But I don't feel like it. It doesn't feel like me. It doesn't interest me. I go to work because I have bills to pay. I do my best at work, because my name is on it, and that's the way I am. I don't care about it, but I still can't produce crap. Y'know?

So, I have been tossing around the idea of "is it time for a change?" but I keep coming back to - I'd be stupid to leave. I have no education and no experience in any other line of work. So I arrived at "what about going back to school?" But if I go back to school, there's the question of what to take. There's stuff I'd love to take, and there's stuff that's practical, but none of them overlap. And if I turn my life upside-down to go in a completely different direction, I don't want to wind up in something else that I have no passion for, right?

So then I end up at "screw practical, that's what got me here in the first place"... I've been looking up art schools. ACAD in Calgary, and Emily Carr in Vancouver. I was at a digital photography expo last weekend, and ACAD had a booth set-up. I was able to ask some questions. Anything I take at ACAD is transferable to Emily Carr (in case we wind up moving to Vancouver). Which was one of my concerns. It looks like to get into the credit classes, I need to submit a portfolio.

So I thought that was it, I'd come home, gather up some of my artwork, take it in to ACAD, and start taking some evening/weekend classes, to decide later if I actually want to go somewhere with it.

But then I got home and realized I don't have even part of a portfolio. I was told to make sure it wasn't all photos. My drawings and paintings are all old and in terrible condition. Worn/bent corners, folds, wrinkles. This stuff has moved around with me from home to home protected by pieces of cardboard, wrapped in garbage bags.

So... I was like "well, I'll just sit down and whip up some stuff"... Turns out if you don't use it, you lose it. And I do still sketch and/or paint a few times a year, but with no actual art classes in almost ten years, and even those extremely basic... There is a lot of technique I could stand to learn.

I know I have the creativity, the imagination, the desire to create - but I just don't neccessarily have the theory/technique to back it. Nothing a little school can't fix, right?

So, I'm taking a credit-free Drawing class on Saturdays, from January to April. I don't really know what direction this'll take me in, but it's a direction I've been curious about my entire life - but have never been brave enough to try it.

Aaaaalright, as I excited as I am to finally have made a decision on all this, I need to get some sleep. B's already in bed and not-so-patiently awaiting me. So off I go... Wish me luck.