What Art Means To Me.

What does art mean to me? That is a question I have been thinking a lot about this week in preparation for this post. If you would have asked me that question three years ago I would have made up some answer about it being therapeutic and cool to look at. However, asking myself that question now, I cannot even put my answers into words.

I have always liked art and appreciated it, but I have never had a real connection to it until my senior year. My church was planning a missions trip to Nicaragua that I was a part of. We needed to fundraise a certain amount in order to go on this trip. Car washes took place and little money was raised individually so I decided to sell some artwork. I was in a ceramics class where my main way to pass time was throwing on the wheel. I liked making mugs because of the practicality of them, and when someone has a mug of yours, they use it daily and think of you. I ended up making around five-hundred dollars for my trip and was so ecstatic.

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My freshman year of college was a drought when it came to art, I really did not do it at all. When the end of freshman year rolled around and summer was around the corner I decided to reach out to a friend who taught classes at my local art center. He connected me to the two people who ran the art center to try and come up with a way I could use their ceramic studio without having to take classes. They decided I could volunteer my time Thursday nights at there summer ethnic concerts and for two weeks at the beginning of August for a children's clay camp. I was so excited, but also a little nervous to get back into it. After a year with no practice, wheel throwing came back to me like riding a bike, naturally and wonderfully.

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I had a busy summer schedule and made it to the art center fairly regularly. It was not till my 2 weeks of kids clay camp where I really came into my identity as an artist. I was working with this girl named Mary Alice. She was just out of college and incredibly sweet. I was just a volunteer and she ran the class, but I learned so much working next to her. She was just going through a life change from working as a production potter to opening her own business. She inspired me to really want to be a potter, but what was I going to do? The summer was over and I was headed back to Pitt, I didn't really have time to get anything together, but boy did I have ideas. It started with the name, ‘Made Good’, since my last name is Good and I never really have been good at English. Then I figured I could open a makeshift studio in my parent's basement since they had a storage room they didn’t really use. Everyone around me was encouraging me, even my brother got me shelves and paint for the studio when my birthday rolled around mid-August. I was feeling so inspired I even bought a tiny wheel. I have all these ideas about wall planters with beautifully green succulents in them, and mugs filled with coffee in peoples mugs in the morning.

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Coming to college after that inspiration kick has been extremely hard, but I supplement my need to create by doing calligraphy. I write out quotes and paint basically anything and hang it on my wall. I received my chemistry textbook in the mail and it was covered with cardboard. I took the cardboard out and painted it ‘create something new every day’ without even giving a look at the book. I have plans to set up my studio over winter break and sell some of my mugs from the summer to fund that. Hopefully, by the time summer rolls around, I will be able to work as a full-time potter, while also getting patient care hours for graduate school. My goal is to make my tuition in one summer by selling at flea markets and online. So wish me luck, and remember to find that one thing that makes you feel like your on top of a mountain, and never stop doing it.