Neon Wonderland

So, yeah.  Turns out art school isn't the most productive environment for me when it comes to blogging.  Besides being busy and not really being interested in going to do touristy things in my home country, I'm writing on the other side of the page - that is, academia.  It's objectively less writing than in my MA, but it's still a little like eating your vegetables before desert.  It'll ruin your appetite. 

But it's Sunday, and Sunday was always my blogging day in that other life.  I'm (at the time of writing) also just a few short weeks away from my very own Vegas weekend, courtesy of the Evil One, who will be in the States on home leave.  I'll definitely be writing about that, a self-respecting blogger just CAN'T have a Vegas Weekend (even a Mormon one) and not write about it.  You may well be wondering what that has to do with this, but see, for my thesis exhibition, I'm planning to create an exhibition focused on the experience of Korea, neon side streets in places like Jongno 3-ga and Apgujeong, and my mentor, genius that she is, suggested I take a neon class as research.  Going to Vegas also qualifies as "research," but I digress...

So for five weeks last winter I ditched church* to go to Foci Center for Glass Arts.  Here's something that nobody ever tells you: bending glass is fucking hard.  Neon signs are the definition of ubiquitous: they have been everywhere, all throughout my life.  Leading up to the class, I thought with disdain about how I was NOT going to make a word, because that was boring.  More to the point, I was not going to make a word, because that is a lot of damn work, and bending glass didn't come natural to me.  To give you an illustration of this, the most important skill in neon is what's called a double back, a 180-turn in the glass that sends the tube back in the direction it came from.  After 17 hours of class time, I still can't reliably make a double back.  I ALSO can't weld two pieces of glass together, which is pretty important, because the tubes are only 4-5 feet long, and once you start bending it, that doesn't go very far.  There are ways around both of those skills, and thank fuck for that, but I struggled with this media in ways I previously wasn't aware it was possible for me to struggle.

My biggest regret as a student in this class was that I should have spend more time practicing outside of class.  Robert, our instructor, told us to on the first day, pretty much as soon as we got started, to go in and practice on our own - studio time was super cheap, after all, and there is something relaxing about being there on your own with no one to see you fuck up or burn yourself - but with everything else going on, I didn't get the chance to actually do so until the 11th hour, when I was panicking that I might not actually get a working piece finished.  I made a lot of progress in those two hours, and if they'd happened much earlier on...well, who knows?

Well, a few weeks ago, I was curious about the upcoming stained glass classes.  I am under strict orders from my mentor to rein myself in and not go wandering off after new techniques for a while, but I got a membership when I signed up for Neon I - it gives you 10% off classes, which is a significant chunk when it's a 5 week neon class - and there are only a few months left to use it.  For good measure, I looked to see if they were offering Neon II...but instead, they had a technical class on how to wire our work, which included instruction on making a support structure.  By the time the class rolled around, I was not feeling it.  It was 90 degrees fahrenheit on October-fucking-fourth, and my feet were exhausted from a week with either too much printing or too much papermaking (...or both?  Both sounds good).  In my past life, when money was disposable, I might have just ate the cost and stayed in my studio working on my other things, but in THIS life, fifty bucks is both a lot of money and not nearly enough, so I went.  And it was really good that I did, because now I feel like I can actually finish my project.  I don't have the words to express my appreciation for one of MCAD's old guard sitting down and talking me through how I would display my sign, but a.) it was six months ago, and b.) there is just something completely different about having the different bits and things you will need right in front of you, rather than on a screen.

*In my defense, I would have chosen a class that didn't meet on Sundays, but at the time there weren't any.

That Time I Got Reincarnated as an Art Student

It’s election night.  Every election for the last 20 years I spent overseas, where you have a nice sense of detachment, and the added benefit of living 13-ish hours in the future from the chaos.  By the time the polls close, usually I’m just beginning my Wednesday morning.  This year, the counting is hardly begun, but I’m supposed to go to bed and hope I wake up in a world where American democracy still functions.  Although I haven’t been what you might call an active participant in the democratic process before, I have been paying attention, so I’m pretty damn nervous tonight.  And since it has been a hellalong time since my last blog, I figured distracting myself by working on a post might not be a bad idea.  So here we are.

It's hard to believe three months have gone by since I moved to Minneapolis.  The reason it’s been a hellalong time since I blogged is because I simply haven't had time.  You see, I am now the protagonist of an isekai* anime.  I have transmigrated into a new person.  That's right.  This is that time I got reincarnated as an art student.

This is notably different from the first time I "went to college."  When I was an undergrad, I went to a public, state university, which just happened to have a school of art within in.  So technically I was an art student, but I was also an education major, and the vast majority of my learning wasn't focused on the visual arts.  These undergrad bitches here have no fucking idea!  When I was taking geology and logic courses, they’re just taking more art.  But that’s okay, because now as an MFA student, I also get to eat, sleep, and breathe art.  I’m just doing it following up a whole other career.

From Deep Time, Amanda Hamilton's show at Bethel University 

It seems like in my first incarnation on campus, financial aid used to consider grad students taking 9 hours to be full-time.  Well, I’ve got 14 this semester, as long as you don’t count the course I’m auditing, which seems kind of insane, but I’m having fun, so at least I can say I’m not suffering from insanity.  Yet.  

To be fair, though, most of those hours are my mentorship.  The foundation of MCAD’s program is developing your studio practice under the supervision of a mentor.  We each individually reviewed the list, contacted and interviewed artists who we believed could benefit our work, and chose the one we wanted to work with.  Mine is the amazing Amanda Hamilton.  Each week we meet and review what I’ve been working on and my goals for the semester.  Last week we shook things up and went to the Walker and spent some time with their permanent collection, which is currently curated on the theme of place…I wish I could take credit for knowing that and planning to go for that reason, since it’s a major theme for my work, but I just figured we could visit their artist book collection (which we did, and it was fantastic).

I spend a lot of time in my studio.  Before I started my MFA, I didn't really think I needed a studio.  Since I never ate at the dinner table, it became my de facto studio space, and back then, that was good enough.  But now I have these three walls to tape up my works-in-progress, as well as some of my favorite past work.  I have two big tables to spread out scraps of paper and a low shelf with short divisions to hold my paper.  I have windows to store my books, and to grow plants for (hopefully) making dye at a future date.  It feels comfortable, and I like the fact that when all I'm going to do in a day is work on my art, I still have a place to go.  I have a reason to get out of my apartment.**

Garlands, by Stephanie Hunder

When I'm not in my studio, I'm usually in the printshop.  Sweet fuck, it feels good to be a printmaker again!  My work over the last seven years used collage with gouache paint, so it may come as a shock, but I always used to identify as a printmaker.  When I was planning what I'd be doing over the course of my program, I planned to get reacquainted with printmaking, with the intention of moving on to other things in future semesters.  Now I just...kind of what to keep printing.  I mean, I've been doing mixed media with my prints, and I still want to make installations, I just...want to do those things through my prints.  I think a big part of that is the faculty here.  The professor I TA for is fantastic, the professor whose class I’m auditing inspires me a lot with what she does (her work is directly above this paragraph, from her show this fall), and there are even more faculty I haven’t had the chance to work with much yet (fingers crossed for the spring semester!)  Oh, and the shop is probably 3 times as big as what we had at UMKC (and the shop there was already the best facilities in the program).

Ponca, Ponca Camp, by Henry Payer, at the newly reopened Joslyn Art Museum

Almost all the reading I do comes back to either art or aesthetic theory.  Okay, not all the reading I do, because cheetahs don't change our spots, and since Princess began reading the Dresden Files last fall I've been itching to catch up with her.  BUT THE READING I DO FOR SCHOOL IS ART RELATED.  How to critique well.  How different artists are influenced by their context.  Major theoretical underpinnings of artistic practice...and going back to look at a collection I’m familiar with like the Joslyn, with new knowledge, is pretty eye-opening.  I even have a little time to do my own research.  The library itself just amazes me every time I walk in there.  Want a book of anatomical illustrations from different periods of history to inspire your body-related artwork?  They've got it.  Want to check out some artist's books?  They've got those, too.  They even have quirky librarians that are super excited to talk about whatever you are looking for, whether it's historical costumes or paper making.

AND OH!  That reminded me of the print library.  You see, once upon a time, MCAD was part of the Minneapolis Institute of Art.  Even though they are now separate institutions, they are attached at the hip, and MiA has a freaking fantastic print library that we are able to visit.  I've only been there once, for a class field trip, but it left a pretty big impression, and that's just one small part of the museum.  The rest of it is just as good.  Since I got here, I've seen an exhibition on collage, learned some new mokuhanga artists, watched Buddhist nuns paint a sand mandala - SOMETHING I NEVER SAW IN SPITE OF LIVING IN MONGOLIA TEN YEARS AND TRAVELING IN TIBET - and now they have an exhibition of Toulouse-Lautrec prints and paintings.  Also, I voted there a week and a half ago.  Because where better to vote than an art museum, especially when you can do it early???***

In my so-called spare time, I go to art events.  It's a bit like being back in Japan - there are too many events, and not enough time to go to them all.  Also, being a student takes up just as much time as being a teacher.  But I've been able to go to my mentor's artist talk in September, and last month painted while listening to Christopher Harrison talk about his work.  So far, my favorite was Nicola Lopez’ show at Highpoint Printmaking, because she combines printmaking with installation, and it’s given me so many ideas.

So yeah, as The Evil One observed, I am enjoying the hell out of this degree.  Far more than I did any previous one.  If anything, I know it’s going to be over before I’m ready to go back to real life.  But for that matter, who knows if I’ll even go back to real life?  Given that I was kind of burnt out on teaching (the whole premise of my transmigration) and that I feel like I need to be closer to my mom while I still have her, maybe I’ll stick around Minnesota for a while.  Or maybe democracy will fail tonight and I’ll be desperate to escape reality again.  I guess only time will tell.

*A genre where the main character transmigrates into a new, often fantasy, world

**Believe it or not, there was a time when I was the opposite of a homebody.

***Actually, the answer to that is "via mail," but I screwed up my Iowa absentee ballot request, and this is an election that anyone of conscience just can NOT miss.

Twenty Years Later…

Back in August of 2004 I did something crazy; I threw caution to the wind, packed up what I believed would get me through a year overseas, and moved to Korea to be an English teacher.  I had not trained as an English teacher, nor did I know much about Korea - I hadn’t even tried the food when I boarded the first of 3 planes that would bring me to the other side of the world.  There were lots of nervous tears, some hysterical giggles, and a huge adjustment period, but before the end of that first year I had extended for four months and was working out the logistics of teaching art for a proper international school.  With the exception of a short hiatus following my second stint in Korea, I haven’t looked back since.  At least, not until now.

At a temple in Seokcho, summer ‘05

Back in June I left Mongolia for the last time, but it has taken until now for me to realize that I’m not going back.  It hit me one morning a day or two before I moved, when I was figuring out the logistics of finishing my packing, and I realized that I could not, after all, stay up all night right before my flight packing.  This is because I wasn’t flying to my new home, I had to get up that morning to go collect my U-Haul, which I would be driving the 6 hours it would take me to get to Minneapolis.  So no all-nighters for me.

Twenty years ago, boarding that plane was the hard part.  I felt like I was stepping into an unknown world without support - when my second flight was delayed, I was panicked that I would miss the third, and when I arrived in Seoul no one would be waiting for me.  Fortunately, that didn't happen, and over the last 20 years, I’ve come to realize how well my schools have supported me.  This summer proved to me how hard it is to move just within the States, from finding an apartment (let alone jump through all the hoops necessary to rent - thank goodness for the Evil One's Bank & Trust), to driving a moving van, and especially remembering that everyone here speaks English and maybe I should try saying “fuck” a little less often.

It also occurs to me how daunting it is to do this without my dad.  It’s stupid - he couldn’t have helped me load the moving van, or drove up there with me.  He was actually probably looking down on us as Shaggy, Babysis, and Gameboy helped me thinking that he’d at least dodged that bullet.  But there was just something about him that made you feel reassured, that everything would go smoothly, and if it didn’t, he’d help you figure it out.  I feel a bit adrift in the world, knowing I can’t ask him for help anymore.  And that makes it hard to leave my mom behind.  I couldn’t have stayed - I have no job in Glenwood nor do I WANT to have a job in Glenwood, and I’m a city girl through and through, being out in the country with no car and nothing to do would eventually have driven me crazy - but that doesn’t change the fact that I feel like the worst daughter ever.

Spoonbridge and Cherry at dusk

But I feel like Minneapolis is a good compromise, and in a way, it feels like I’ve come full circle at this point.  You see, this was the last place I went before I took that first big jump.  Not only because my mentor teacher, Lulu, used to bring her NAHS kids up here to see the art and tour MCAD, but because my parents decided they could fit my two younger siblings and I in a Ford Contour and take us on a road trip to the great northern beyond (we fit, but it was not a comfy ride).  And THEN, my classroom at GDA was actually called Minneapolis.  So there was a definite sense of fate as I set off two weeks ago in a 10' U-Haul with a smattering of possessions...

...mainly art supplies, to return here and try something that now felt just as crazy: starting back in the States on a slightly different career path, by going back to school.

It's been over a week since I got here and things have gradually started to move forward.  I've made approximately one trip to Target every two days (it's only a 6 block walk).  I've tried out at least six different restaurants on Eat Street.  More excitingly, I've met with three different mentors and chosen one to work with as I start the program.  I've moved into my studio and began to set things up - and gotten back to work.*  I've gotten my ID, am meeting with the professor for whom I will be TAing, and have gone to the two big art museums.  In a lot of ways, it really feels just like starting in a new country, with the notable exception being the fact that new classmates apparently aren't as eager to go socialize as new coworkers...I guess the fact that we're from the same country doesn't hold much weight when so is everyone else.

*Let me tell you, I think that was the hardest thing about this summer.  I've done sketches and things but not started actually working on anything in months - it is absolutely the worst kind of edging.

Down to the River

I have no travel blogs for you this summer.  Ok, I should have them, because there have been a lot of places I’ve been and things I experienced in those places that happened long past which I haven’t sat down and caught up on…and yet I still haven’t, so I don’t.  I don’t know how to describe my mental state this summer other than altered.  It’s been a weird one, to say the least.  Other than Minneapolis, where I sit typing this on the couch in my new apartment, my travels only took me down to “the farm,” to lay my father to rest.

My dad was from a tiny southern Missouri town called Rocky Comfort.  He didn’t want a funeral or a memorial service, but he purchased burial plots in the cemetery where my grandparents and great-grandparents are buried, so we planned to bring his ashes home this summer.  My mom let his extended family know what we were doing, and even though he probably didn’t want us to make a fuss or waste money on it, I think he would have been touched to see that so many people gathered to say goodbye.  And afterwards, we gathered at my grandmother’s church and had a meal of some of his favorite foods.

Roaring River hatchery, as seen from above

So that was the first day.  However, one of the things that my dad always did when we visited his parents was to go fishing at a state park called Roaring River.  It’s fed by a spring that wells from a huge cave under the park, so the water is actually cold enough for trout, which are raised and released for all the eager anglers to catch.  He’d get up before dawn and drive through the dark to the park, buy a fishing permit at the shop in the lodge, and wait for the siren, when he’d start casting his line, with a shiny silver rooster tail, into the river.  This was the fish I grew up eating, rainbow trout caught by my dad.

So that’s how we remembered him.  My brother, nephews, brother-in-law, cousin, and uncle went fishing.  And I went to do the same weird shit I always did while my dad went fishing - feeding fish at the hatchery, admiring the spring, hiking the trail, and chatting with whoever had gotten bored of fishing.  It’s a pretty nice way to spend a morning.  I got to catch up with my aunt for a while, sketched fish and the cave entrance, walked probably more than I should, considering how inactive I’d been the preceding month.

The spring has always fascinated me.  It’s hella deep - even using diving equipment with rebreathing techniques, they still haven’t managed to get to the bottom of it.  The water is a brilliant blue, and the fish grow fat up here, where fishing is forbidden.  I don’t know the lifespan of a trout, but I’m pretty sure some of these guys were here when I was a kid.  It’s beautiful in a way I’d never seen anywhere else during my formative years, and also scared me more than a little.  Like if I fell in, I’d be lost forever - and yet I was still drawn to it.  

Now that the niblings have started playing DnD, I might have to use it in a dungeon…

Near the spring is Deer Leap Trail.  This trail basically goes straight up, skirts the edge of the cliff above the spring, and then comes straight back down behind the lodge.  Even though it’s steep as hell and I am in the roundest shape of my life, I wanted to hike it to remember my great-uncle.  When I was old enough to come down to the farm on my own, I remember having dinner with him in the park restaurant, and having him tell me about how he hiked Deer Leap every 10 years on his birthday.  He wasn’t sure he’d be able to do it on his 80th, both because of his fitness for it as well as because all of his brothers had died in order before their 80th birthdays, but he actually lived to see 90.  After we buried my dad’s ashes, JD’s last wish was also finally fulfilled, as his ashes were sprinkled on his wife’s grave.

Which brings me back to the river.  After the fish were caught and everyone was gathered, we drove to a little fishing hole a little further downstream.  My dad used to take us there from time to time, away from all the hustle and bustle of the other fishermen.  There was a deeper pool, and lots of rocks for skipping, and I remember splashing around in it with Shaggy, when the other kids were too young to enjoy it.  I couldn’t have told you exactly where this spot was, but he knew, and he led us there.  Once everyone had gotten out of their cars, we spread the last of his ashes into the water, to rest in this place he loved.  It’s been hard to let him go, but if I had to imagine what heaven would look like for him, it would be to spend eternity fishing, surrounded by his family.

Art Nomads: Zula Tuvshinbat

Alternate Title: This Exhibition Should Have Come With A Trigger Warning

Well, it had to happen eventually.  If this was my last year teaching - and it just might be - it makes sense that this is the year It would happen.   The thing that happens to every teacher, eventually, and you know as it unfolds exactly what it is:

The Worst Teaching Day of Your Career.*

For narrative purposes, it would be fun to say it started like any other, but to be completely honest, it did not.  I had decided it would be good for my Art III students, especially my AP students, if I took them out into the world to see some Real Art.  I took them to galleries in what my students informed me was UB's "Shibuya" - the intersection between the big library and KFC.  Only, silly me, after 9 years in Mongolia I had decided that it would be fine to take them to these exhibitions even though I hadn't previewed them because every other exhibition I'd seen in UB was tame.  I knew the third show, the one that involved tufting, had a little abstract nudity, because I'd seen an image from it on the gallery's website, but since one of my students had talked about focusing on the body in their work, I decided the risk outweighed the benefits.

I was wrong.  So very, very wrong.

We made it to the third gallery before it happened.  The first one we hit was pretty standard Mongolian subjects - horses, families, flowers - and style.  The second was landscapes and yaks.  A lot of yaks.  We had lunch at Fat Hen - the students' request, and always a tasty treat.  I was ready to head back to the school after briefly stopping into a new "contemporary" art gallery, Lkham.  Most of the artwork seemed okay at first glance.  Working with abstraction has that effect.  The technique - tufting - also helps...it's hard to feel threatened by a rug.  At least, until you realize that rug is a snake-penis growing out of a man's torso and about to strike a stylized vajayjay.

Well.  When we walked in, and I realized that some of the work was a bit more "confrontational" than I was expecting, I probably should have just called it a day.  But the thing about being an art teacher is that the human body is a pretty significant theme in art, and even more so contemporary art.  So I muttered that along with something to the extent of "don't like, don't look" and off we went. 

"2 CUTE 4 U," 2023

The art was beautiful, and really well crafted, and the kids seemed to enjoy seeing something different.  One of them brought up the Cesar A. Cruz quote often misattributed to Banksy: "Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable," and how this exhibition really helped them to understand its meaning.  But another mentioned - somewhat jokingly - that this probably wasn't an exhibition to take students to if they identified as ace or were gender non-conforming, and suddenly I had visions of my students posting their photos to social media, angry parent calls, and myself packing up my apartment and heading home jobless 8 months sooner than expected.  Probably because I'd been keeping closer track of US news than was good for me, but still.

"Loyal as a Dog," 2023

So I spent the long bus ride in traffic back to the school sweating.  I informed my principal about it, and talked to the students - let them know that if they were uncomfortable with the art that that was part of the artist's intent, but that they could and should talk to their parents, asked them to be mindful of where they posted the pictures, and hoped for the best.  My principal reminded me that we were in Mongolia, not the US, and that our parents weren't overly concerned with these sorts of things, and my friends who saw the work when my students excitedly showed them photos consoled me that it really wasn't that bad.  Still, I'm glad that I'll be making art instead of teaching it for the foreseeable future.

*Fun fact: my siblings and I were responsible for several of these in our day, so I guess karma's a bitch.

Into the Black City

 My last spring break as a teacher (at least for a good long while) is over.  On one hand, this means that I won't have to experience the way a week can stretch infinitely at the end of a quarter while you pray you survive long enough to be free of the children for at least a few short days of travel.  On the other hand, it means I'm going to be too broke to actually have a few short days of travel...unless I break my piggy bank.  This is something that I'm trying to avoid, but after a year Stateside I may be desperate enough.  I have hope that Minneapolis will be lively enough to keep me from noticing all the places I haven't gone.

Ever since the Evil One moved to Armenia I've been intending to go visit.  After all, we were practically neighbors...or so I told myself.*  I was aware, on some level, that it was trickier to get to the other end of central Asia than I was telling myself, since Her Evilness and co. came to visit two years ago, but you have to actually EXPERIENCE it to realize the truth.  I've said it before.  I'll say it again, especially since it may be the last time I do so for two years: getting there is NOT half the fun.  See, flights into Yerevan are sporadic.  What the Evil One did - and what she suggested to me - was to fly through Istanbul into Tblisi, which is in Georgia.  Four hours away from Yerevan.  Which either meant another flight - if there was one when I needed it (there wasn't) or ground transportation.  She suggested a taxi.  I said a bus was fine (I am not living on a state department salary, after all).  And then she booked and paid for a taxi anyways, and had it take me directly to Gyumri - the first place that I mentioned wanting to visit - and met me there, claiming that it made it easier for her (because it did - no worrying about me while also avoiding a 8-hour drive round trip).

I was struck pretty hard through the drive by how similar Georgia (and later Armenia) felt.  Topographically as well as the nature and some of the buildings gave me the impression that Mongolia and Greece got together and had a love child, then gave it to Russia to raise.  My driver rushed along nice, smooth roads til we got to the border crossing - I think my fifth time crossing by land.**  Since these days we mostly travel internationally by plane, it's easy to forget that you typically have to pass immigration twice - as a departure and as an arrival - but it was kind of a trip to be dropped off by the driver, walk through Georgian immigration just a few hours after they stamped my passport at the airport, drive over a river, get out and walk through Armenian immigration with my luggage, because this time I also had to go through customs.  Not my weirdest land crossing, but definitely interesting.

The taxi made a brief stop for food (ie, snacks) and the bathroom just past the border, and then we wound through a canyon pretty much all the way to Gyumri, another 3 hours.  The views were stunning and bleak by turns - I would have loved to make the driver stop at several points for photos, but since he was getting paid as a taxi driver, not a tour driver, I went easy on him.  

Finally I made it to the old town, where the Evil One had booked us into the Grand Apricot hotel.  She and her spawn came out and retrieved me from the driver and escorted me along a walking street before giving me the "grand tour" of my hotel room, which had been ransacked for pillows by the Lesser of Two Evils.  After a short break, we all went out wandering.

The Armenians are amazing stone workers, and if I'd had more time, I would have taken her Evilness up on the offer to find me a carving class to take.  Instead, I just had to admire it and take photos ad nauseum.  The stone many of the buildings and carvings are made from is called tuff, a kind of sedimentary stone made from volcanic ash.  Apparently the city planners of Gyumri - formerly known as Aleksandropol - had an emo streak, because they primarily used the black tuff for their masonry.  And since I have a bit of an emo streak myself, of course I loved it...now I just have to figure out how to work it into a piece (maybe embossed paper???)

My first morning in Armenia I woke up bright and early for the thing that had brought me to Gyumri - dolls.  Of course.  The Family Evil slept in while I walked past churches to buy a loaf of bread and sit in the fresh morning air eating a snack, then wandered the rest of the way over to Naro Dolls.

It was a little off the beaten track, but 100% worth it!  I loved meeting another craftsman - she hand sews and stuffs the dolls, using some cloth accessories as well as the painting.  She even had a "big sister" doll based on the same design that I chose, which I really loved.  Although it was different from the dolls I usually make, it was fun and I learned a new technique for the hair that I might have to try with my own dolls someday.  And her hospitality was so sweet - when I told her I didn't drink coffee or tea, instead she brought me a cup of water in one of Gyumri's special crafts - a metal cup that sings!  It was a pretty long workshop, and by the time Anahid (as Evil named her) was finished, it was about lunch time, so I got to try my first lavash, too, and it was delicious.

Finally I headed back to the hotel to force the sleepyheads to get moving.  It was Evil's birthday, after all, so even if a lie-in was called for, we definitely needed to go see something.  We discussed what we should do next, and after wandering a bit ended up at the Black Fortress.

Once upon a time, of course, it was an actual military fortification.  The hill it sits on gives a strong advantage, with views of the countryside (ie, the Turkish border) all around...not to mention a lot of steps, if you count that sort of thing.  But these days, it's used primarily for performances.  I checked out the acoustics, much to the mortification of the Lesser of Two Evils, who refused to sing songs from Frozen with me, even though we were about the only people there.  As we were about to leave, the caretaker came and offered to show us the museum, as well - apparently it kind of opens on an as-needed basis.  We also got a nice view of Gyumri's Mother Armenia statue.

And that was about it.  The next day, we visited the Museum of the Two Sisters - an art museum showcasing the work of two women from Gyumri - and stopped at HayAr jewelry on our way out of town, where I got to buy a beautiful pomegranate necklace made of recycled bullet casings.  Then we were on our way to Yerevan.

*Yes, we physically lived closer to one another her first go-round - her in India, me in the Emirates - but Mongolia and Armenia feel closer on a mental level.  Yes, my brain is a crazy, crazy place.

**I've also crossed US-Canada in 1989, South-North Korea in 2007, Greece-Turkey in 2008, and China-Nepal in 2013

Back to School

It happened like this.  First, I came to Mongolia, a country that was never on my list, and I taught some of the best students in the world.  I mean, sure, some of them made me want to pull my hair out, but by and large, even the kids who were kinda turdy got it, and would straighten up their act with a reminder.  And the ones who weren't?  Well, they kind of ruined me for teaching, because in the years since they graduated, I realized that they were actually just the best kids ever; it wasn't something magical in the water or the pollution in the air making me hallucinate, it was just those kids were that good.  So good that I wanted to be a better teacher.

"Long Line of Cars," 2022

Now, it's not that I didn't want to be good at my job.  I did.  I still do.  It's just that there are a lot - a LOT - of days where I just do not tap into the Superteachah* mojo.  I put in my hours, I make everything work...I am just left with the nagging suspicion at the end of the day that I could do better.  I could do more.  Admittedly, this is probably part of the reason that it's taken me 20 years to feel burnt out in my career, but regardless, because of these amazing, awesome kids I used to teach, I decided I would try.  By the time I left Mongolia at the end of the first five years, I was accepted to an online MA program for art education, and off I went to teach in Japan.

"The Floating World," 2023

If you're reading this already, you've no doubt heard the next part of the story, mostly because it's been a struggle to blog much since the time of the pandemic (at least in part because I was creating art for my exit strategy), so chances are you've been here since before then.  The cliffnotes version is this: I started my MA in art ed by taking a painting course, and almost immediately wished I was doing a studio art program instead.  Ironically enough, when I finally slogged my way through my dual bachelor's degrees, I told myself that if I ever went back to school, my master's would be in art, NOT education.  Back then, all my classmates were already feeling the pressure to start one, and I figured it was 6 of one, half a dozen of another - wasn't being a better artist going to make me a better art teacher?  But I was already on the path, so I carried on, even though living near Tokyo meant being surrounded by art in a place that was a constant source of personal inspiration.  Still, ever since, I've been struck by the nagging sensation that I didn't just want to be an art teacher, I wanted to be an artist.  This coincided with the unshakable feeling that I didn't have much time left with my parents, so I finally decided that it wouldn't be as bad to go back to the States if I went as a student instead of a teacher, and started preparing myself to do so.

"Migration," 2024

I ended up being a little too late, but I guess that's something I'll eventually stop regretting.

I wasn't originally going to apply to the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.  I had my eyes glazed over thinking about the kind of top school I've always wished I could have gone to for my undergrad, in a big city, with some full scholarships on offer.    It was kind of a fluke that I got together with friends from Korea last summer, but talking to them made me think maybe I would enjoy living in Minneapolis, and should apply to MCAD.  I visited 20 years ago, back before this whole thing got started, helping my mentor teacher chaperone a group of NAHS students, so I knew it was a good school in a good city, but until I met up with Mark and Emily, it hadn't been on my radar.  But when I had a portfolio review with their MFA director in November and they sent me a code to waive my application fee, I figured Why The Hell Not?

"Ghost in the Graveyard," 2023

The rejections I got were devastating.  I knew from the start that there are more applicants than spaces for most MFA programs, but I was really hoping I'd find myself living it up at a top art school with a full ride scholarship.  They say, though, that God doesn't close a door without opening a window - in my case, to help me to be in the right place, doing the right things - and this time the window opened up in Minneapolis.  And when I looked into it seriously, I realized this was exactly the right place for me.    

"Hard as a Rock," 2022

For starters, I'm probably not "art world elite" material.  What I mean is, I think the kind of students that get accepted to those schools talk the Big Talk (with lots of jargony words) and walk with their feet a few inches off the ground.  Their admissions officers certainly made it seem that way.  I think I'm a pretty good artist (when I'm assessing my work critically and objectively, and not under the knife of my imposter syndrome), and I love art - I want to make more of it, and to get better at it.  The people I've talked to from MCAD feel down-to-earth in a way that makes me feel safe doing so.

"Near Shore, Far Shore," 2023

And I can't think of a better place to take this step.  Maybe Minneapolis isn't New York or LA or even Chicago, but it has some really fantastic programs and systems in place to support artists.  There's also the not-insignificant-fact that I have friends there, and not starting my social support from scratch is huge, since I'm an established misanthropist.  It's a truly cosmopolitan city...I can take taiko lessons again, if I can figure out how to afford them!  It makes me a bit nervous to realize how tight money will be, but I'm hoping that a starving-artist lifestyle will allow me to lose some weight.  It may be cold as fuck, but I'm coming from LITERALLY hell frozen over, so I'm sure I can handle it - actually, I think I prefer it that way.  

So that's it.  After 20 years, I'm out.  I've mostly gotten over the panic attacks from knowing I won't be traveling for a while, and have moved on to the stage of knowing I will be able to get what I need at the supermarket, and that when I order something at a restaurant I won't constantly hear, "Bah-kwei."  I feel relieved that I'll only be responsible for my own behavior for a while, rather than worrying about the fact that I can't get my students to turn in their work or wear their uniform appropriately.  This probably isn't sayonara to teaching, but it's at least going to be a nice, long jannei.

*Aishiiii, Superteachah!  I went through one of my old sketchbooks when I went home to say goodbye, and it had ALL THE MEMORIES.