Proposition for disposal

As I prepare for my application into graduate school I've been frequently pondering what to write in my letter of purpose, here I would like to sample what I'd wish to write, but I'm not sure would be considered appropriate.

The first draft:

Dear Graduate School,

I am terrified to apply to your graduate art program. I'm simultaneously horrified of both failure and success. I look at my sad little resume and I am filled with insecurities. I wish I could say that it has been a steady journey for me towards my goals in the arts, that I've already had multiple successes and recognitions adorned on me like glittering gems in the crown of my achievement. That has unfortunately not been the case. My artistic pursuit has been fraught with demons. So much of my time and energy has been spent overcoming the effects of long term emotional abuse and negative indoctrination. So much of my adult life has been hampered by poverty, anxiety and a fight to find my path. How dare I even approach you? But how can I help it? My past cannot be helped. I have not outwardly pursued advancement or recognition in art, instead I have let it just be a quiet and steady part of my life, my art hiding behind the other work I do for money and survival. But it is time for that to change.

Have you known those times in your life when you are broken in half? It has been one of those times for me recently. I have felt virtually fit to explode. I knew somehow I had to return to myself again, that I couldn't run from pursuing what I've needed to pursue since I was born. To make art. I can't deny it its place in my life anymore. And though I may sink a little when I've laid out a piece of myself on canvas and it isn't understood or appreciated, it doesn't matter anymore. I no longer want to hide until I've secretly achieved some false vision of perfection. I want to strive in the open among the most celebrated and critical practitioners and assessors in my field. I want to be inspired and humiliated and then find my own place among the best and brightest artists of our time. This is why I am seeking you out.

My earliest memories are of my attempts to render a skeleton or a snail crawling on the delicate arches of a southern Utah landscape. In elementary school I taught my friends to draw horses and swans and to build paper houses. I painted to work through my adolescent issues and to express feelings that were not easily spoken. As I approached adulthood, I was unfortunately, and probably not atypically, squelched. I was expected to relegate my art to hobby status and to focus my sights on a more practical career. And I tried. But I never felt satisfied or happy, a part of me couldn't help but repeatedly return to art making whenever it seemed possible. This eventually led to my attaining my BFA. It was near the completion of my degree that some very serious shifts happened that made me realize that I need to break from my programming and reconsider allowing myself a career in art making.

I was in Germany, finishing up my coursework via a study abroad program. I traveled about from museum to museum, painting plein air out in the streets, then returning to home base in Steele to study color theory and work some more. I got to live just making art. And I was inspired by the art I saw, revelations came. I discovered that bizarre work done by an artist with confidence and reiteration could find itself valued in the annals of art history. I discovered for myself that I was drawn to work that seemed to have a brilliant mastery of color, regardless of movement, admiring alike Vermeer and Kokoschka, Rothko and Picasso. The greatest revelation happened for me in Bottrop in a small museum, set in a garden, dedicated to the work of Josef Albers. I had been studying the Bauhaus and their version of elegant modernist design inspired by respected artists of their time. I found a favorite in Albers. I saw him begin as a school teacher, then expressionist all the way up to the simplest experiments in color theory represented in a series of "Homage to the Square". One standing alone (as I had seen in the National Gallery in DC) was unimpressive. But when confronted with an entire climate of them I was quietly astounded. I always thought it was rather silly of Mondrian and his crew to think you could change human behavior with good design and using the right colors, but here I was being ever so subtly changed. Our world is filled with ever increasing chaos and horror. I used to hide from it, as much as possible, but now I try to be aware of it, and to understand it. But how does one deal with the aware experience of living in an American city with extreme discrimination, poverty, drug abuse and murder? How does one find any peace when they study the effects of American foreign policy on the Middle East and come to an understanding of the horrors with which some members of the human population have come accustomed to as part of their daily lives, an experience which some of those individuals seemed determined to spread?

Art might not be able to directly change human behavior on a grand scale, but it can be a shelter and solace for those that seek it out. It can be an inspiration and an impetus for those seeking already to change themselves. Art is important for communicating an identity of a person or people and I think also important for offering beauty and a moment of repose. Josef Albers, either knowingly or not, created through his experiments with color, a powerful moment of repose for such an unsettled soul as mine.

The series of oil paintings I am currently working on stems directly from my inspiration from Josef Albers. I have sought to simplify the composition, so that it frees me to think about the interaction of the colors I place together. I have however, also chosen to include elements of visual texture, some color blocks more complex in nature than others. I like the point of intellectual connection those blocks create and the mystery they sometimes add to the compositions. These more complex blocks are also a product of my process. I created small scale studies in collage, before blowing each of them up to a larger more arresting counterpart.

My admiration for Albers was not the final revelation for me though it was a powerful one. Another important moment for me came on a miserable rainy day in Berlin. I was in a very low mood, an old demon chewing at my heart and I wandered alone, drenched and in search of a metro station to return to a cold hostel. Then I saw through a gate a very quiet statue, it was a woman curled in a ball clutching a young man's body to her. It was sad and terrible and suited me perfectly. I later realized it was a sculpture by Käthe Kollwitz. I saw much more of her work after that, so much of it full of emotion and misery. Her art was a witness to horror and a personal journey through darkness.

Each day I awake and wander amidst my canvases, works in their various stages of completion. I have to decide what I will make that day. These days I work placing color next to color and luxuriating in their mix, but other days there are different things to say. Perhaps a reaction to my culture, or an expression of the demons that live inside me. Some days I abandon color altogether and work with charcoals. My subjects typically lusting after sleep and escape.

I want to share one final revelation. I've discovered that I value tradition in art. Innovation on its own merit is not satisfying to me. However, I feel it is very important to live in and respond to the present. Tradition and innovation must meet. There are several contemporary artists out there that I feel are continuing to honor the aesthetic teachings we have collected over time and use that collection of knowledge to respond to our time. Some of these artists most certainly include those of you I seek to study with.

This is where I feel I should tell you how great you are and how you are just what I need to have a shot a making art my life for the rest of my life. But you know this. Your status as a great masters program for painters like me is no secret. And now I should tell you I'm offering my passion and commitment, my willingness to struggle and endure and hopefully triumph, whatever triumph there may be in the life of an artist.

Mostly, I just want to continue this journey everyday. Living and then responding to life on canvas and paper until I meet completion, ask him how-de-do? and shake his hand. Please take me on.

Sincerely,

She-burt the reckless letter writer and applyee