When I was a senior in high school I took AP Art. For those of you who don't know about Advanced Placement, wikipedia describes it [link] as "a program that offers college level courses at high schools across the United States and Canada." This is a good definition. However, AP Art seemed to be a little different to me. First, there was no 3-hour exam at the end of the year. Second, the student emerged from the year with a large body of work; perhaps it would be a portfolio worth of entrance into an art school, or perhaps (as in my case), there would be a few pieces to frame and hang up around the house, and there would be many more to sit in big envelopes in closets and behind desks and things.

In the AP Art curriculum, the student is required to produce 24 pieces of work. There are three major categories into which this work may fall: Drawing and Painting, Design, and 3-Dimensional. (I did two portfolios, a D/P and a 3D.) Drawing and Painting encompasses exclusively that; projects that fall outside the realm of traditional artwork tend to be frowned upon (as many of mine had considerable design leanings and my D/P portfolio didn't score that well [2/6 - not enough to accrue any college credit]). Design searches for products of several categories: drawings/designs that could later be realized, as in theatre set or costume design, product designs/logos, and 2-Dimensional work that varied considerably from the traditional drawing and painting (Note: It seems like cubist art and the like could fall happily into either 2D category). 3-Dimensional design is pretty straightforward, so I won't describe it in detail. Suffice it to say, my 3D Design portfolio scored higher than my D/P, and I put it together in less than 9 weeks.

So, you may ask, How does one go about deciding what 24 things to do? Aren't there some parameters? Well, yes, in fact, there are. Thank you for asking.

In creating a 24-piece AP Art portfolio, two major sections must be observed. Alphabetically, first, there is the BREADTH section, which includes 12 pieces designed to show off a variety of skills and a general understanding of media and design elements. These 12 pieces need nothing to do with each other. In fact, as the name suggests, the breadth section is designed to be varied. The other section is known as the CONCENTRATION and is designed to be a series of connected pieces. These can (but don't have to - but seem to score higher when they do) build on each other to tell a story or give an essence of a thing. My concentrations were (D/P) Dancers and their feet and (3D) Costumes/Clothing.

At the time, these concentrations were things to which I was emotionally connected. I was dancing several times a week, and I had picked up sewing as a pretty intense hobby. I had no trouble producing the quantity necessary for the portfolio, and I feel to this day like my experience in AP Art allowed me to pick back up my pen/marker/paintbrush (thanks, Mrs. Ingram. You were right... I can, in fact, paint) and, after a few blunders that come as a result of rust, be able to produce something I'm somewhat pleased with (For an example of this, see my Tale of Two Cities paintings: [link] )

Nowadays, however, I find myself without a need to pick up my tools and create art. Scratch that; begin again. Nowadays, however, I find myself without a course/deadline/threat of an F/teacher/etc. to make me pick up my tools and create art. I have complained to a handful of friends during my 4 years in college that I have lost my creativity and that my ability to make art has died. While I am not this morbid on a day-to-day basis, I feel like it is still the case to some degree.

So why am I writing this journal?

I still have ideas, but I haven't the willpower or the time to put them into action. If I were to redo my year in AP Art with the perspective I have gained in the past four years and a focus on what I connect to today, my portfolios would probably not be the same. There are two portfolios, in fact, that I really wish that I had the strength to create.

The first of these is a D/P portfolio. The concentration would be "Reflecting Life" and the focus would be on finding the mundane objects that show a human (my) reflection. These include the faucet in the bathtub while taking a bath/shower, the faucet in the sink when brushing teeth, any number of doorknobs and other things that I would think of had I not been thinking about other things. Probably because Mrs. Ingram, my AP Art teacher, loves reflections, I tend to notice them places. I feel like reflections in mundane objects could become a very powerful collection of drawings and paintings.

The second I suspect would be tossed into the design category, although I feel personally like it would be legitimately D/P (even as photography). In traveling, I have had the good fortune of going to many museums and seeing many famous paintings (La Joconde, and The Raft of the Medusa in the Louvre, Un Dimanche Après-Midi à l'île de la Grade Jatte and several Magritte paintings in Chicago, and more Art than I could see in a week in several hours at the Met), I have come to appreciate multiple styles of art. I think that it would be something special to see an AP Art portfolio that cruises through history using modern technology (in particular a digital camera) to replicate the great masters of art. From the Greeks (although, I can't say it would be easy to make a sculpture with a photo... who knows... stranger things have been done) to Da Vinci and the Renaissance Painters, to the industrial emphasis of the 19th century, through impressionism, expressionism, idealism, realism, and naturalism on into cubism and dadaism followed by modernism and postmodernism (did I miss any isms?), it seems like an ability to capture each style in a photograph would indicate a mastery and understanding of both the major elements of each form and the use of the digital camera.

Perhaps one day I will get around to producing this portfolio. Until then, I post this journal so that you know that it's something that I want to do.

Thanks for reading,
-LW