Josie Guerrero is focused on one thing: getting accepted into the prestigious art studies program within the Art School at the University of Southern Washington. With thirteen weeks to create her sophomore portfolio, she knows she can't afford any d...
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I'm drawing a blank here.
I've been staring at this untouched canvas for the past forty minutes, trying to figure out what to paint, but instead of the flood of inspiration that usually washes over me whenever I stare at a blank page for too long, I just feel kind of empty, off-balance, uninspired.
I certainly didn't have this issue this summer when I went on vacation to Malibu with my parents, my best friend Halle, and her family. I spent the entirety of those two weeks with my bikini-clad butt parked in the sun-dried sand and my sketchbook propped up on my knees. I drew everything — the cliff-lined coast, the cerulean waves, the sailboats bobbing softly on the horizon, and more than a few sketches of my mom with her sunburnt nose in a magazine while she sipped on her frozen margarita.
But as much as I enjoyed bathing in the sun while sketching the silhouettes of the surfers riding the waves, I can't deny letting Halle and her little brother Holt pull me along on all their drunken beachy adventures was the highlight of my trip. We did everything from snorkeling, jet-skiing, and sandcastle building, to parasailing — which I still can't believe Holt and I successfully convinced Halle to do since she's deathly afraid of heights. She was sandwiched between us in the harness, one hand gripping each of our arms as the wind currents lifted us high above the choppy water. The experience would have been surreal — breathtaking, even — if it weren't for Halle's ear-shattering screams every time a gust of wind rocked us up higher. Holt and I both had hand marks imprinted on our arms by the time we dropped back onto the boat, and unfortunately for Halle, the entire thing was documented in 4K HD by her moms, Caroline and Stacy.
All in all, it was an amazing summer break. But for some reason, that same free-flowing inspiration that helped to fill an entire sketchbook all but disappeared the second I set up my easel in the campus art studio this morning. I've been waiting all day for something, anything, to come to me, but it just hasn't.
If my mom were here in Washington, she'd probably tell me that my creative lull was a side effect of too much fluorescent lighting. That art is found in life and experience and adventure - in the moments that make your heart race, and your lungs burst. That art is meant to be experienced before it's created. According to her, none of those experiences will be found within the four stuffy walls of a university art studio. She's encouraged me on more than one occasion to skip class and go "experience something worth creating," or at the very least, to find a park to explore to soak in the warmth of the summer sun while it's still here in Pullman.
I can't exactly tell my art professors that I decided to skip their lectures to find a park to sit in. But as much as my mom likes to blame the location, I'm pretty sure this creative drought is a side effect of the nervous energy that's been humming through my veins since I woke up this morning. Because today isn't just the first day of my sophomore year, today is the day I begin my sophomore portfolio. My sophomore portfolio — otherwise known as the application that will determine whether or not I'm accepted into the School of Art here at USW.
