Classes started today here at UCSC, and my first class of the year happened to be my art class. Preliminary inspections indicate a favorable outcome — that is to say, it looks like it’ll be fun. The professor has been teaching art here for twenty-eight years and seems pretty down-to-earth, not at all a crazy hippie as I had feared. We’re going to be working from still life for the first few weeks, then some photographs and live models, and finish up with some landscapes, weather permitting. The studio is very spacious, which seems a bit at odds with the extremely limited class size, although we’ll see how crowded it gets with twenty-four Giant Drawing Pads of Doom set up around the room.

We do have homework, Part One of which is to get our supplies (I have two supplies out of the ten listed, and one of those I left at home, exasperatingly enough), and Part Two of which is to check out an art book from our vast and perpetually under-construction main library. I had been to the main library once before, to activate my ID as a library card, which was unhelpful in helping me locate the stacks, as I realized today when I went in and discovered that I had no idea where any of the books in the entire library actually were. I found them (eventually) without too much difficulty (only two elevator trips, although I suppose I should mention that the library only has four floors), and was immediately and perhaps a touch unreasonably astonished at the sheer volume of books we have in the stacks. Where to start?! But I found one I liked after a while, and now my assignment is to look at it in the hopes that I may derive some inspiration from its contents.

We got out early, as it was the first day and we basically just went over the syllabus, which is how I had time to go to the library, check out a book, then come back and write for you. (And I have the chance to eat something before my next class, immediately after which I have practice… my Tuesdays and Thursdays are going to be interesting, to say the least, once the gears really start turning).

Anyway. I’m excited. What will I make? I can’t wait to see!

Advertisement