That was 1991. As it turns out, it would be 10 more
years before I would learn to thrown pottery on a
wheel, and it wouldn't be because I taught myself in strange garage-school in a cloud of nicotine and
Nirvana lyrics.
I tried to think of art as a hobby, like most grown-ups do. It's not lucrative, doesn't make money and isn't a "real" profession. This is what I was taught. I have many other gifts and talents; I always made straight. As, played sports (basketball and volleyball)--surely these could guide me to a useful life.
I started college as a language major. I studied French and Spanish in high school, the only tow languages offered, and loved learning about other cultures through their language. In college I studied Russian, Swahili and more French, as well as linguistics in general. I began to realize that the idea of communication is very important to me (and is, obviously, to everyone) but the structure of it, the being of communication - the need, the means, the ingenuity, the building if it, both intrigued and frustrated me. I wished for a universal language. Also, my love affair with art had never ended. I began to see art as the closest form of universal language that
I could find. From Guernica, to emoticons, to ads for Pepsi, it's all a form of art, and it all conveys expression and a form of communication.