And so... well.

Now I've graduated.

Our ceremony was the bomb. Cristaugh is the best speaker I've ever heard.

This last week I've had to come to terms with leaving the PCAE, I didn't know whether or not I was ready.

However, the more I thought about what Perpich is and what its purpose is, the more I realized that the school accomplished its mission. My work there is done. I am ready to go.

allow me to elaborate

ATTENTION! *LONG* THOMAS-STYLE ELABORATION/EPIPHANY/RANT/LECTURE AHEAD, PROCEED IF YOU LIKE TO READ THAT KIND OF THING!

I realized that Perpich isn't really about art. It isn't an art factory, it isn't an art academy, and it isn't a great big studio designed to give students the chance to accomplish all of their dream projects in two short years.

Perpich is designed to cultivate creative thinkers. Going to Perpich makes the young artists who go there more articulate, more intelligent, and it gives them the determination and the power to get their dream projects done, wherever they go.
Most importantly, it helps the students actualize themselves and become balanced individuals.

Perpich students undertake a metamorphosis at the arts high school. At least in Vis, anyway.

At the beginning of Junior year, kids may cling to something that doesn't matter. This may be a social group, an attitude, an art "style," a specific friend. They may become reclusive, or they may become obnoxious. By the end of Junior year, however, the student has learned to stop fixating and to move on. They have been broken out of their shells.

Another phase that students will go through is one in which they begin to think of "art" as a "high" concept. They begin to take art very seriously, and this is a bad thing! If a student thinks art is a grave, super-serious endeavor, they will have trouble creating things. either because they don't feel confident, or because they will have turned into a grave, super-serious person.

In the first semester of senior year, the classes you take teach you from many angles that art and creativity are products of play. They are fun. In order to create, you need to be silly. That doesn't mean that art is frivolous. But art can be sincere, deep, and important without being "serious." If you deny yourself silliness and playfulness "because it will damage the integrity of your art" then you are foolishly putting a stopper on your own artistic mind. By the time second semester of senior year rolls around, the student has learned this truth.

During their time at Perpich, the students are also constantly learning to think more and more symbolically and philosophically. They explore themselves psychologically, and they explore the world through research. They think about culture and society. They learn to analyze, they learn their impact on the physical and metaphysical environment, they learn their role as leaders, and they learn to articulate their increasingly complex ideas in increasingly effective ways. This process begins at the very beginning with the first summer assignment; it is greatly advanced by the second summer assignment; it continues through the entire two years due to academic classes that encourage students to challenge the status quo ("because the status is NOT quo").

Also, students are having to push themselves more and more to get to do the projects they want. I've often heard students (myself included) complaining that they need to fight the system a little bit to get certain opportunities. Sometimes students feel trapped and confined by limited options. When you are experiencing this in the moment, it is the most infuriating feeling in the world... But eventually, you learn to deal with it, you learn how to be assertive but polite and you learn how to get what you need, even if you have to bend the established rules.

By the last quarter, most of the students have internalized all the knowledge they need, and now they just need to prove themselves. They have broken out of their old habits, they have learned to have fun with their art, they have learned to think deeply and express their ideas clearly, and they have learned to fight (even against their own limitations) in order to realize their dreams. At this point a good percentage of the students are ready to go self-directed and accomplish one of their dream projects. The grant class is the class for those students. Whether this involves coordinating lots of collaboration, gathering lots of materials, buckling down and organizing a time table, or learning a new system unguided... These special students work and succeed on their own in a way they could only imagine at the beginning of junior year. And the ability to do such a project is the bread and butter of the artist.

In the end, one realizes that if one has done those five things:
1. Detached from the safety net/left one's comfort zone/moved on from things that don't matter
2. Learned to treat art as play
3. Started thinking deeply, metaphorically, symbolically, creatively
4. Learned to articulate oneself and to stand up for one's ideas
5. And demonstrated the ability to accomplish ambitious goals in a self-sufficient and qualitative manner.

Then one has been transformed by the PCAE, and one is ready to become a leader in the world.

...


There is another lesson in there, too (somewhere). And that is to think of the process of creating art as a piece of performance art in and of itself.

END OF EPIPHANY

anyway...

While I know that I'm done with the school. I miss my friends already (even though I know I wouldn't see them on a Saturday anyway). I was dumb to ever consider myself an introvert.

I'm really looking forward to taking some steps to meet and collaborate over the summer.

with a goodbye to Perpich

A salute

Hope for the future,
Mine, Yours and Ours

and love to you all.

...

IDK