My life sans the option to pursue a formal architectural education...
would look much like my life prior to entering a formal fine arts academic program...
Oh, the mid-twenties... they were fun years.
Take a trip down memory lane with me, if you will...
This is Tryst, the bar I worked at in Washington, DC. I served libations to patrons to aid them in their journey towards intoxication. I then took their money. This job, my role, had a deep impact on the environment around me. The merits of this impact can be (and are) debated (particularly by consumers in the early hours of the morning after) but there is an impact nonetheless. This job also afforded me the opportunity to have an impact on my social and physical environment in other ways.
Let's see how...
This was a trip I went on to Mississippi post-Katrina. This is now a grocery store. (note the black and blue hair... the ever evolving ways in which my hair expresses itself is just another way I impact my environment. Keep a look out. There may be more examples as we stroll along here.).
Again, Mississippi. Same store, just inside.
Sri Lanka post-tsunami.
Sri Lanka, again. We're finishing a building that is now a community center.
Building a classroom in Monte Verde, Costa Rica.
Aside from building things for humans to occupy, I made things to look at. You've already seen some of them. Here are more examples:
It was a pretty good life. I also worked with a community arts project in SE Baltimore, MD. We built a functional sculpture garden in a vacant lot. Lots o' fun. And then there was my short stint as a writer/editor/board member for STREET SENSE, Washington, DC's bi-weekly newspaper addressing the issues of homelessness and poverty. (Note the use of the word "brief". I was young and idealistic. This sometimes leads one to butt heads with practicality and those who represent it. They've done very well without me.)
They were good times... and then I went to art school...
This is where to blog prompt gets me...
I must start by saying that I am in love with the institution that is academia. Pretentious and esoteric it is, yes, but I revel in it. It's a world that I want to belong to and as a result, I love those institutionally constructed milestones called degrees. The pursuit of knowledge, when institutionalized (as it is), is not just about personal/intellectual/social advancement. It is a game and it is about status. I like playing the game.
That said... it is just a construct. An exclusive, divisive, elitist construct. I say this, in part, because I went to art school.
Art School. It was an important learning experience for me. Not because I became technically more proficient as an artist (although I did... in some ways) and not because I became more conceptually considerate (again, I did... in some ways) but because I realized that formalizing my knowledge, my interest, and my technique, somehow took the life out of my art... and my art out of me. Somehow that "visionary" part of my untrained eye became refined, tamed, and timid. Thinking very seriously about the how's and the why's and where's of what I was doing, within the context of the "Art" world, made me afraid to create work. Once I knew the system, once I understood the "Art" world, I didn't know where I fit or why I should even consider trying to fit within it. Art school made "Art" cliche and almost formulaic. It made me question the merits of an institutionalized, formalized education. It made me think about the game.
Now I'm here... pursuing a formal architecture education.
Why, you ask, after art school?
A couple of reasons:
1. There are disciplines of knowledge that I feel are better standardized, formalized and institutionalized (i.e. medicine, engineering... and, well, architecture).
2. I'm interested in the theoretical and conceptual aspects of the discipline and scholarship is easiest done in scholarly institutions.
3.The likelihood of finding a master willing to teach me the ins and outs of designing and building buildings in todays world is slim (the institutionalization of knowledge makes it more accessible).
4. To pursue such knowledge independently takes time (more than it would in a formal setting), can limit your access to existing knowledge, and can limit your ability to advance knowledge (sometimes you need to work in collaboration with others and sometimes you need the backing of a institution to be heard)...
5. I still love the game.
Without the constraints of a formal architecture program (as I existed in my early to mid-twenties) I know that I would pursue the building of buildings and the creating of things to look at, activities that impact and change the environment around me, and I think the relevancy of these pursuits is equal that of my current educational pursuit... I think we do the things we have to do to sustain ourselves and our souls, whether that be via formal avenues or informal ones. I need to create things and work for social change. I have over the last 5 years and I continue to do now in this environment.