Stop Putting Science in My Art

I've discovered that landscape design may not be the best fit for me. I mean, I love coming up with landscaping ideas, and I love implementing them, but I'm getting fed up with site plans. Given that that's most of what I would be doing as a landscape designer, it might me time to find something else.

The problem with site plans is that they remove what I love most about art. I love the adrenaline rush of spilling my ideas onto paper, or canvas, wire, soapstone, linoleum - whatever medium I'm using. I love taking mistakes and redirecting my work around them. I love getting messy and cleaning up. I love interpreting reality however I want, whether it's realistic, abstract, or something in the middle. I love communicating ideas and emotions, personalities of people and places, things that can't be said just with words.

With a site plan, I'm thrilled while drawing haphazard sketches, but once I approach the tracing paper that joy is replaced by grim determination. My materials are limited to a few different colors and weights of paper, thin black pens, and reasonable, tame shades of markers and colored pencils. Mistakes mean starting over or having a flaw that nags you every time you glimpse it. There is no room for mess; smudges are detestable, and every line has its proper place. The only freedom of interpretation I have is choosing/coming up with the best shape for this bush or that tree or determining how realistic I want my shadows to be. I must communicate the plants and features in the landscape as succinctly and obviously as possible. It's true that different landscapes express different emotions and ideas and whatnot, but that doesn't easily translate to a site plan.

Reusing the same shapes over and over again isn't art. Getting better results by tracing others' symbols than by creating your own isn't art. Marking where to put this plant or that lamp isn't art. These designs are more like a mechanic's blueprint than an artist's landscape. I can't stand to cold, scientific, restricting sense of it all.

So what now? I'm not abandoning Landscape Horticulture and Design. At least not yet. This week I meet with my advisor to take care of scheduling, and I will be taking classes assuming that I will remain in LAHD. I'll probably take an art class both as relaxation and to prepare for the possibility of switching. The following week I have a mid-semester meeting with my professor for the landscape architecture class that set all of this off, and I'll be voicing my concerns to him. Maybe I just haven't given site plans enough time, or maybe he has suggestions for learning to view them differently. It's possible that I will be switching majors to fine arts, adding it as a second major, or considering an art master's. At some point I'll talk to a fine arts advisor about whether or not that would be feasible, what sort of careers are available to art students, how likely it is that I can find and get one of those jobs, and other things like that.

However, each of the three aforementioned possibilities (switching majors, dual degree, and a master's in art) have their fair share of problems. If I switched majors after this year, I could still graduate two years from now with problem at all. Unfortunately, I'd need to leave the College of Ag and the HLA department, and they're sort of my home away from home. I see my friends there more consistently than I see anyone else, and I'd hate to leave them even if I'm just crossing Marsteller Street. There's a sense of family on the ag campus and in the hort buildings that you can't find anywhere else at Purdue (except for my church).

If I do a double major, I would need an extra year to graduate, and I'd be taking at least 18 credit hours every semester. I would no longer have a scholarship for the final year, and if Josh were at a different college for grad school that would mean yet another year of separation.

Getting an M.F.A in studio arts seems like my best option, but it still has a few drawbacks. First, I don't know what my chances are at getting in if I don't have a B.A. in art. Taking lots of art electives in addition to the requirements for an art and design minor would help, but I'll need to talk to a fine arts advisor to get more information on that matter. Second, I don't know how easy it is for art grad students to be T.A.'s or what I would get paid for it. It would definitely be a lot less than I would get paid for working as a full-time landscape designer. Once again, I'd need to do some research to see whether or not that's a realistic concern. Third, if I were to get a job in landscape design after all, would people be less willing to hire me because they might have to pay me more as a person with a graduate degree? This is another fear that may not be founded in reality, so I'll be bringing it up to my hort advisor when I meet with him next week.

And then there's always the possibility that I will learn to love site planning for what it is rather than disliking it for what it isn't. That would be convenient. I'm not giving up on it yet. And whether I pursue a career in landscape design or not, I can assure that I will be gardening for as long as I am able.

I apologize for my lengthy and angsty rant, but I just thought I'd get it out there. Putting this all in writing has helped me see what my best option is and how to go about planning my course of action.

Welcome, Autumn

According to the calendar, fall has arrived! And the weather should be in agreement shortly. I hope your autumnal equinox was just swell yesterday. In keeping with my intent to change my blog's appearance with the seasons, I bring you this lovely orange wall with a door in it. There were many suitable background options for a fall scheme, but once I saw this lovely picture it won. Not only does it have a door, but it in some way looks more "professional" than some of the other ones that had maple leaves or something like that on them (although there was a very nice one with dark red Acer palmatum leaves that I will probably be switching to towards the close of the season). It may not be explicitly autumnal, but it is most assuredly implicitly autumnal.

Although it doesn't feel like fall outside (it's 93 degrees and humid, good fountain run weather), it's starting to sound like it. It's been windy for at least part of most days for the past week or so, and the rain is coming more often. This weekend the temperature will be following the wind into cooler temperatures. After today, there isn't a single day past the 70's in the 10-day forecast. I'm pretty excited.

Next in the works for posts are a fall playlist, a review of a book I'm about to finish, introductions of my plant friends (I've added some new ones since last time I talked about them), and who knows what else. Right now my questions of the day really aren't very interesting, or they are regarding other people's lives. Hopefully they'll be bringing more excitement soon.

Book Review: The Call of Cthulhu

This afternoon I finally took the time to read Lovecraft's most famous short stories: The Call of Cthulhu. I'd been meaning to read it for a while. A few weeks ago I borrowed a collection of his stories from Austin with that intent. Playing a boardgame based on his work last Friday encouraged me even more. So when I had a little time between studying and church today I decided to use part of if to read this story.

It was a well-written enjoyable story. Not enjoyable in the sense that it was a pleasant and lighthearted afternoon frolic, but enjoyable in the way that Poe and Bradbury are enjoyable. It was sort of brooding and fascinating and pulled me in. He did well in parting from the conventional story-telling method and having it instead structured as an individual piecing together the stories of others until a horrifying big picture was formed.

One thing that particularly interested me was the concept that the geometry on R'lyeh was "wrong." Was the appearance of things merely deceiving in an optical illusion sort of way, or was it truly somehow composed of shapes and angles and curves that are not possible in this world?

I definitely intend to read more Lovecraft in bits and pieces. That's the lovely thing about short stories: you can pick one up for just twenty minutes and get all the way through. With my hectic schedule, bite-sized literature is quite a blessing.

This is one for the good days. I have it all here in red, blue, green...

It's time for another happy list! This one, too, came from Sara, Courtney, and me during AP Calculus our senior year. The title came from a fantastic song ("Videotape" by Radiohead) and refers to the pleasant memories from Rahn's class and the fact that we used three different colors of pens (they were red, blue, and green, unfortunately). Courtney's additions are in courier, Sara's are in georgia, and mine are in trebuchet.

• creating a new world (after watching Lord of the Rings: Return of the King with magical creatures and wars and magic and somehow create a best-selling book out of all of it :D)
• picnics at Winton Woods
• swinging (especially at nighttime)
• finding random words in Japanese
• watching the sun rise or set
• odd but pretty names
• doodling
• the color combination of these pens [1]
• untrodden snow
• delays [2]
• the sound of a waterfall (or any other body of water)
• birdsongs
• soft thunder storms at night
• coral reefs
• fall colors
• taking pictures
• splatter-painting
• June 4, 2009 (only 17 weeks from today!) [3]
• books that suck you in
• knowing 3 of 17 weeks we aren't here! [4]
• multiples of 3
• budding flowers
• fresh-baked cookies
• the wind
• color guard
• JESUS!
• tea (it's kind of hard to follow yours Sara - it kind of wins)
• music (any kind - it's all great)
• dancing down hallways (Shantytown...haha)
• working with charcoal (or any other messy art medium)
• all cello bands (Apocalyptica, Breaking of Reality...)
• acoustic guitar music
• reading beside a fire while watching snow fall

[1] Courtney had lime green, Sara had teal, and I had purple.
[2] Snow delays, that is. We had gotten one that morning if I remember correctly.
[3] Graduation Day
[4] She was referring to the trips and breaks before graduation.

Am I a Prophet?

After a relatively long hiatus, I'm finally back. Sorry for the gap in posts, but the past few weeks have been a little crazy for me. Now comes the time when I re-examine the claims and predictions I made about this semester's classes. Of course I know I'm not a prophet. I was just having a hard time coming up with a post title. Now onto the matter at hand.

AGEC 330: Agribusiness Management
Most of what goes on in this class is completely foreign to me and only somewhat interesting. I know it will be useful, and it's already opened my eyes to all sorts of things I never knew about the ag industry, but business stuff has never been my forte. Fortunately it's not hard. I'm currently looking into taking it as an honors contract class.

AGR 290: Peer Mentoring for AGR 101H
This class is neither particularly good nor bad. I'm at least a better peer mentor than the girl I had last year, and that was my goal. It doesn't take too much time or energy out of my schedule. Those things are in short supply in my life at the moment. It does, however sometimes fill my email inbox with an overwhelming number of emails.

AGRY 255: Intro to Soil Science
I like this class. I'm learning more in this class than I have in any other class I've taken so far at Purdue, and it's interesting, too. It's set up well with one lecture per week, a discussion at the end of the week, and three days in the middle to finish a three-hour lab on your own time. While getting the lab done is stressful for me, it's a good way to learn.

CHM 257: Organic Chemistry
I love the professor for this class, but he doesn't teach at all linearly or clearly. And my TA doesn't seem to be much help at all. I am encouraged by the fact that he will say "this is a very hard concept" and then explain something that isn't very hard but do so in a complicated way. This probably means that if I ever don't understand something I can read some other source and get it easily.

HORT 217: Woody Plants in the Landscape
I enjoy this class and view it as a challenge. Not because it will be challenging to get an A, but because I've decided I want to actually remember every plant and everything we're supposed to know about each plant. I could be a walking, talking plant encyclopedia by the time I finish this course and HORT 218.

LA 116: Graphic Communication for Landscape Architects
I have mixed feelings about this class. I'm excited to be able to draw, but we don't get to be creative. Plus it's challenging because I need to unlearn the way I draw. I spent six years learning to loosen up and speed up in my drawing. Now I'm great at the sort of skills needed in fine art, but I need to tighten up again for drafting. I can tighten up, I'm just slower than ever at it, and it feel unnatural.

It will be a good semester. A busy semester, but a good one. Hopefully I'll be able to make more time to post a little more regularly than I have in the past during the school year.