As good as it gets

The first word that comes to mind when I recall my art school is 'compromise'.

---

It's a paradox because what I heard most often from teachers in school was 'be uncompromising.’ 'The nature of art is to pull a subject from beginning to end without worrying where it might take us'. So why the 'compromise' circling in my head?

The school was small and not very well equipped compared to others of its kind in the country. Nevertheless, this art school was the closest to my family home, and my parents did not agree that I should go to school somewhere further away because it was 'dangerous'. We didn't have woodcarving or metalwork classes, there was a constant lack of chemical solutions in the classical photography studio, and very rarely did we have a model to sculpt or draw - we usually posed for each other, which meant that some of our time was simply wasted for posing . The easels were in poor condition and the storage space for our work was overgrown with mould :D

---

Regardless of all that - I enjoyed the classes, especially the art classes, and spent many hours also after class to finish my drawings or sculptures. All these 'inconveniences' didn't matter, because I still had the opportunity to do what I love:)

Art school(art-high school??, not sure what would be an equivalent in other countries) lasts four years (at least according to the old system). At the first period of the third year, each school in the country selects 3 representatives from 3 different disciplines for an inter-school 'art high school review'. My hard work in and out of class was rewarded and I was one of the three lucky ones who got to represent our school.

---

I had no doubts as to which discipline I would be assigned (the jury at school level chose one person for the drawing, one for the sculpture and one for painting). So I sat in that meeting with the jury and the other two participants with a smile to my ear... until my name was called next to word 'drawing review'.

-Sorry, I think there's some kind of mistake. I’ll be drawing?

On the jury sat my former drawing and painting teacher Prof. A(he taught me in first grade), he looked at me with a chastising gaze. I sat down obediently.

At the end of the meeting, my former professor grabbed my elbow (I hated it, he always did it by surprise, and even though he was a head shorter than me - he had a hand felt like crab’s claws) and pulled me to the next room - the storing room (yes, the mouldy one ;D)

-Professor, please, do something! I was supposed to go to the sculpture review!

-You were our first choice for sculpture, but then all of us on the jury agreed that we didn't have any strong drawing artist in your year who could complete a full figure drawing in 4 hours! You are the only one who finishes drawings in the room on time, and you know it!

-In my group, maybe I do. But what about the other groups? After all, Amadeusz from group A and Karol from group C would certainly manage without a problem!

-Amadeusz never finishes his work and is terrible at anatomy, and Karol may be capable, but he's just plain lazy, there's no chance of him making it on time. Sorry, but we really have no other choice.

-I understand.

I gathered my things and headed towards the bus stop. Tears were streaming down my cheeks. I started looking for excuses. Anything just to avoid going to this cursed review.

When I got into the lift, already being in the boarding house - in the mirror I saw that my eyes may have been dry already, but my face was all red. I had black patches under my eyes from mascara.

I couldn't fall asleep all night. When I finally managed to dozed off in the morning - I was woken up by my room-mate after - what seemed to me - only a few minutes of sleep.

I had the worst day, relly. The next day wasn't any better. It wasn't until the end of the week that I managed to pull myself together and started building a portfolio for my drawing review. I stayed up after hours, asking friends to pose for me so I could draw as many figures as possible and prepare for the upcoming ‘big thing’.

The month passed very quickly, I still didn't feel prepared and right after the weekend the review was starting. The school jury chose 6 from my final drawings to take with me to the review.

The whole thing lasted 2 days - on the first day our school works were shown, in my case drawings (3 figures, 3 still life's), and on the next day it was time for the real stress - the competition between the participants of the 'live' review. All of this were happening at the same time, just in different rooms - drawing took place in one, sculpture in another and painting in a third. Each of us had 4 hours(4x 45 minutes, with 15 minute breaks) to complete the works. The breaks were mainly for the models who posed for each discipline. Sculptors were tasked with sculpting a head, painters and illustrators with a figure.

I had drawn easel number 3, almost at the very exit, so in addition to the stress of the whole situation - there was someone walking past me all the time - I kept hearing voices behind me from people who were standing in the doorway and peering curiously into the room we were working in.

I had the words of my painting teacher in my head, which she kept repeating during the workshops: -'only calmness can save us'.

-‘Only calmness can save us'.

-‘ONLY CALMNESS CAN SAVE US!!!'.

I set about measuring the figures with a pencil and adjusting the proportions. Unwittingly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw what the girl to my left was doing - she had already figure properly positioned ion the paper after only 5 minutes, when I was just drawing the supporting lines. To my right, on the other hand, was a boy who started with a head study, and I could see at a glance that he couldn't fit the whole figure on the paper, and that was one of the conditions for the work to qualify for the jury's assessment.

-Ok... which means I'm somewhere in the middle....

My hands were shaking for the whole 4 hours. I used the 15-minute breaks to work on the background and the shading of the drapery the model was sitting on. When it was all over I was just grateful that it was over.

---

Our tutor(the sculpture teacher) took us for a walk around town, and food. All the stress left the three of us. Even though we were not friends in class - we had a very nice time in each other's company. Everyone talked about their 'shaking hands' and then I completely relaxed, because I could see that we were all going through the same thing.

At 5pm the results were presented. Our school came 3rd, which we were very happy about, mainly because it was the first 'podium' for our school in 5 years!

Sometimes even now I wonder 'what if', but it still- probably it wasn't the worst compromise after all:)

The two drawings I am presenting today where made for this 'review' purpose only. Name of the girl on the picture is Milena'. On one of the picture you can still see my 'review number' which was '023'. We were told not to put out names onto pictures, so the jury will not be 'lenient'.

Happy Friday Eve my deares Hivians!

Yours,
Strega Azure

Drawings was made on caolin - bristol, shiny side, that's why drawing has bron/yelloish tint, I connot remember what pencils I was using, sorry, it was really long time agoe:)

Drawings & pictures are my authorship if not stated otherwise.

All rights reserved @strega.azure ©