From Your Token "Friend Who is an Artist Living in Europe"
I've got to be straight with you: my head is a mess. I couldn't decide what exactly to write about today, but my ideas ranged between "All the Stupid Questions we Ask in Art School" to "10 Things I Love about Hot Chocolate."
But my head is too much of a mess even for that, so I'll just have to be honest and boring and you'll never get to know all 10 Things I Love About Hot Chocolate.
But if you feel like you'd rather read 10 things about chocolate, I found just the blog for you. You can read it here (it's lovely, promise) otherwise you'd better commit to the-token-friend-who-is-an-artist-update.
I've had a lot of trouble committing to ideas since I began this silly art school business. I've had to remind myself to stay in contact with myself as I sit in class, discussing how our worlds are constructed by words, realities are different from one another, and how Freud thinks girls are jealous of boy's penises. As you could imagine, I hardly have headspace to think of anything truly decent, which is why writing about stupid questions or hot chocolate is strangely appealing to me right now.
I sort of fancy myself an extreme person. I live in a foreign country, I've run marathons, I can sleep for over 13 hours straight. I commit to the idea when it comes. The thing about committing to art is this: art is abstract. It's not solid like learning how to calculate taxes and brew coffee. There's no method, no right answer. There's only you and the world around you and you've got to learn to work with that. So the question I must ask myself is this: how do I, an extreme person, commit to art?
Not many people get the chance to ask themselves this question, or are aware that Freud invented the term "penis jealousy."
So, within Europe, within Amsterdam, within the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, you can imagine me sitting in front of blank canvases and books full of strange ideas which I'd probably be better off not knowing.
All that to say: for one of the first times in my life, I don't know what I want to say.
So I have to stick to the things I know:
1. Bike rides to the train stations
2. Train Stations
3. Hot chocolate and/or black coffees
4. Writing blogs instead of doing schoolwork
5. Running instead of doing schoolwork
6. Reading books (I've just finished The Bell Jar, am currently reading One Hundred Years of Solitude, and am looking forward to Originals- how non-conformists move the world) instead of doing schoolwork
7. Cold weather and everything that comes with it
8. My Dutch family (which includes my host family and all my friends based in the Netherlands)
9. Stamppot and Hete Bliksem (Dutch comfort food, check out the links)
10. Weekends
Winter gets dark pretty fast. Thoughts can get lost, your sense of self can be foggy. When I first came to the Netherlands as an au pair, I was aware it would be a challenging year of change. I had done my usual thing of trying together as much knowledge from as many sources as possible, to be well prepared for the occasion. I'm not sure why I didn't prepare for art school like this.
But, in the end, I'm an extreme person. I'll figure it out. I've signed up for my next marathon, as a sign to myself-- I'll be competing in the April 2017 Rotterdam Marathon! And I'll always have my coffee black and enjoy train rides and reading books. I'll always enjoy writing stupid little blog posts, because it makes me feel like I'm giving a long-distance hug to all the people I've known who take the time to read it. To me, art is all about our interaction with the world around us, and I'm slowly realizing the importance of recognizing how we interact with the things we do and say and think. As cliche as it is, life is art and I'm just trying to figure out how to make it. Along with technical things like how long clay takes to bake and painting very strange self-portraits.
I hope you've enjoyed your long-distance hug. And that you learn to hold on to the people and things you love, no matter what sort of strange season of life you're in. I'm sorry for such a confused ramble, but the reason I write this blog is to stay in contact with the world around me and un-confuse thoughts.
I also hope you're all enjoying this beautiful season. Making art by writing blogs or decorating Christmas trees or giving hugs. I hope your thoughts don't get too caught up in the gray of Freud's super weird thinking, and that you always stay in contact with the simple things which make life beautiful.
Cheesy cheers,
Jessica J. Wolfe
P.S. Mom, don't worry I'm okay, Freud didn't get to me.
But my head is too much of a mess even for that, so I'll just have to be honest and boring and you'll never get to know all 10 Things I Love About Hot Chocolate.
But if you feel like you'd rather read 10 things about chocolate, I found just the blog for you. You can read it here (it's lovely, promise) otherwise you'd better commit to the-token-friend-who-is-an-artist-update.
I've had a lot of trouble committing to ideas since I began this silly art school business. I've had to remind myself to stay in contact with myself as I sit in class, discussing how our worlds are constructed by words, realities are different from one another, and how Freud thinks girls are jealous of boy's penises. As you could imagine, I hardly have headspace to think of anything truly decent, which is why writing about stupid questions or hot chocolate is strangely appealing to me right now.
I sort of fancy myself an extreme person. I live in a foreign country, I've run marathons, I can sleep for over 13 hours straight. I commit to the idea when it comes. The thing about committing to art is this: art is abstract. It's not solid like learning how to calculate taxes and brew coffee. There's no method, no right answer. There's only you and the world around you and you've got to learn to work with that. So the question I must ask myself is this: how do I, an extreme person, commit to art?
Not many people get the chance to ask themselves this question, or are aware that Freud invented the term "penis jealousy."
So, within Europe, within Amsterdam, within the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, you can imagine me sitting in front of blank canvases and books full of strange ideas which I'd probably be better off not knowing.
All that to say: for one of the first times in my life, I don't know what I want to say.
So I have to stick to the things I know:
1. Bike rides to the train stations
2. Train Stations
3. Hot chocolate and/or black coffees
4. Writing blogs instead of doing schoolwork
5. Running instead of doing schoolwork
6. Reading books (I've just finished The Bell Jar, am currently reading One Hundred Years of Solitude, and am looking forward to Originals- how non-conformists move the world) instead of doing schoolwork
7. Cold weather and everything that comes with it
8. My Dutch family (which includes my host family and all my friends based in the Netherlands)
9. Stamppot and Hete Bliksem (Dutch comfort food, check out the links)
10. Weekends
Winter gets dark pretty fast. Thoughts can get lost, your sense of self can be foggy. When I first came to the Netherlands as an au pair, I was aware it would be a challenging year of change. I had done my usual thing of trying together as much knowledge from as many sources as possible, to be well prepared for the occasion. I'm not sure why I didn't prepare for art school like this.
But, in the end, I'm an extreme person. I'll figure it out. I've signed up for my next marathon, as a sign to myself-- I'll be competing in the April 2017 Rotterdam Marathon! And I'll always have my coffee black and enjoy train rides and reading books. I'll always enjoy writing stupid little blog posts, because it makes me feel like I'm giving a long-distance hug to all the people I've known who take the time to read it. To me, art is all about our interaction with the world around us, and I'm slowly realizing the importance of recognizing how we interact with the things we do and say and think. As cliche as it is, life is art and I'm just trying to figure out how to make it. Along with technical things like how long clay takes to bake and painting very strange self-portraits.
I hope you've enjoyed your long-distance hug. And that you learn to hold on to the people and things you love, no matter what sort of strange season of life you're in. I'm sorry for such a confused ramble, but the reason I write this blog is to stay in contact with the world around me and un-confuse thoughts.
I also hope you're all enjoying this beautiful season. Making art by writing blogs or decorating Christmas trees or giving hugs. I hope your thoughts don't get too caught up in the gray of Freud's super weird thinking, and that you always stay in contact with the simple things which make life beautiful.
Cheesy cheers,
Jessica J. Wolfe
P.S. Mom, don't worry I'm okay, Freud didn't get to me.
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