Follow Through

While I know follow through is important, and understand why we're getting graded on it, I don't think finishing a project is always the right thing to do. My approach to art is more at a kid doing finger painting angle. It's much more mindless and you're only doing it because its fun for you. Once something loses that fun factor, I lose my interest. For me, art is only created when I have a passion for what I'm working on. This proves to be problematic in my 1st period art class with Mr. Ganes because I completely hate the piece I'm working on and have no desire to finish it, but I still have to. Since I hate it so much, I find myself not trying as hard as I normally would on a piece and it's taking forever for me to finish it. Is creating something really worth it if you don't like it? Putting all that time in for something you're not going to be proud of in the end?
This for me relates back to Thanks. and my grades power project. There was a unanimous vote to stop working on our project and just throw it out for the time being. None of us were interested anymore and were just doing it because we had 3 periods to fill. We weren't going to get anything great with that mentality and quite frankly, we just hated it. I mean, YOU try to edit hours of footage of just teenagers talking, it's torture! Killing the project just seemed like the right thing to do.
Now to be completely honest I lost interest in Thanks. the moment all the arguing started. It was the weekend after the play and I had enough at that point of trying to pull off big projects. Still, I wasn't going to say anything because everyone else was so excited for it, I didn't want to be the one person being negative and ruin it for everyone else. I went along with it, but wasn't crazy involved like I usually am. I sat back and watched everything happen while attempting to clean the STAC room. When the project was killed the next day I wasn't too disappointed, I understood why it needed to happen and agreed with Luke reasoning. The integrity of the project was gone, and most people, with the exception of a few, didn't want to continue it.
I'm not trying to call anyone out or anything, but I noticed that many of the people defending the project were newbies and there's nothing wrong with that. A few came to me afterwards trying to defend the project and change my mind. To me their reasoning wasn't enough to sway my opinion in the slightest. They wanted to do it to prove something to others and not let them think they can stop us, and in my opinion that not what this project was about, that's not what art is about. Some people have a much more organized and structured way of seeing art, and I used to also, but a year in STAC and that mindset got completely obliterated. Here, we are forced to think in ways that most kids our age never have to. You can't be narrow minded, you probably wouldn't make it out alive. There's nothing wrong with the way they think, good for them if they have a structure that works in most ways, but they also need to learn to throw that structure out and experience things. I'm not saying that my point of view is amazing and always right because heck, I have a lot to learn too. That's why I'm here with everyone else.
For me STAC is a place to grow as a person. It's an environment where we're encouraged to make decisions, take risks and if we fail to get back on our feet and try something new. We can't let something like this, that some might see as a failure (I certainly don't) stop us from doing something big and daring again. I don't see anything I do in here as a failure, its a learning experiences. I won't ever see projects like these as something we just threw out, because it is something we've learned and grew as people from. Isn't that all that really matters?

An Apology.

The problem isn't what I've done, but what I haven't done. It's no secret that I've been having a rough couple of weeks, and I'm not very good at hiding it. I know many people have already seen it, and many more are sure to as the days go on. I've been down, and quite frankly, not a very fun person to be around. I'm not going to go into specifics as to whats happening, but I do want everyone to know that I am getting help, and trying to get through this. I know I haven't been trying my hardest in STAC and the play in the past few days, and the last thing I want to do is disappoint anyone. I'm sorry to anyone I've let down, offended, or worried so far, and to anyone in the near future. I've been a bitch, I've been a mess, and mostly I haven't been me, so please forgive me.