Dabbling

I have come to realize how stupid I would be to limit myself to only fashion. There are so many other things I want to do as well. Fabric is a limited medium and I want to expand my art beyond it. Though the term "dabble" has a sort of negative connotation, but that is exactly what I should be doing right now- dabbling in anything and everything, while specializing in nothing.

This is the time for me to try it all.

A day or two ago I went to a magazine launch where I met a really interesting man who set me thinking about diversifying my artistic view. He does a little bit of a lot of things. He is A Designer in the best sense. Meeting him reminded me that I really want to be the clothing equivalent of a Renaissance man. I want to do it all and bring all that knowledge back to my passion for style and the human form. Why on earth would I limit myself in this day and age of easily-accessible information?

This new found energy has inspired me to really delve into my new project at CSM. My Evil Tutor even noticed my excitement, and to my great surprise, I had the first encouraging tutorial I have ever experienced at CSM.

I cannot wait for school to be over in two weeks, so I can focus on expanding my horizons as An Artist and as A Designer.

The Truth of It

Last term my boyfriend and I tried to open our relationship to other people. It was my suggestion, and he agreed because we both hoped it might make the distance and loneliness a little softer. Long story short, it was a short-lived disaster that nearly ended the relationship. It became a source of heartache and incredible anger. It amplified the loneliness instead of softening it.

When we agreed to close the relationship, it was because we remembered that the drive behind this venture was love; was wanting to make sure the other person was happy and taken care of, even if it was someone else who was giving them that happiness for the time being. We opted to try an open relationship because we thought it would make loneliness of the long distance relationship easier to bear. And when it seemed that it was in fact making the loneliness even less tolerable, the answer became clear. Choosing to end the experiment was simple because we remembered why we began it in the first place.



So why am I in London?

I am in London because I wanted to be my own person. I am in London because I wanted to grow and change and evolve into the woman I want to be, instead of shuffling down the more comfortable path I was on. I came to London because I wanted to grow a spine. I wanted to stand on my own two feet. I wanted to make something of myself and come back to the US with an honest understanding of who I am and what I am made of. I wanted to have grounding in myself, trust in myself, and maybe a tiny bit of confidence, however small. I came to London because I needed something bigger, something more than San Francisco in order to do all of this. I needed to see what life was like without the safety net.

None of that has anything to do with the university that is going to kick me out.

I finally remembered that CSM was not my reason for coming to London. It was the means of getting me here.

I forgot that somewhere along the way. Like the open relationship experiment, I had to remember why I began this venture in the first place. I had to realize that this trip was never about becoming the next McQueen or Galliano. It was about becoming more of myself. The hope was that the challenges presented by CSM would facilitate that, but perhaps CSM is a small and insignificant test of my will when you really think about it.

There is so much more to fashion, to London, to England, to Europe, to the world, to my own story than CSM and the year I spent struggling to please people who could never be pleased. There is so much more to life than this. And I spent this weekend remembering that.

Looking back on this last year I can begin to see that Central St Martins was never the reason I came to London. It was the catalyst that allowed me to begin my own life. It was the carrot I dangled in front of my own nose so that I would continue walking ahead.

Of course with the carrot unfairly snatched away from me, I am hysterically running in circles in blind panic. "What do I do now? What do I do now? What do I do now? The carrot is gone, I have nothing to live for."

I am slowly beginning to see that I need to stop spinning and look at the race I am running. The carrot got me here, but "here" is what was truly important.

The truth of it all is that I came to London to learn. Not to learn to sew and not to learn how to make pretty sketchbooks. The truth of it is that I came to London to learn about life and who I am. And frankly CSM was keeping me from that. I moved half way around the planet to be here and face myself. To face my weaknesses and grow stronger. To face my insecurities and learn to stand solidly in the space I occupy in this world. To face my strengths and learn how to use them.

The decision to stay in Europe and seek out life despite CSM is an easy one to make when I remember the reasons I began this adventure in the first place. The truth of it is that I came here to face myself, change myself, and hopefully become myself.

A Change of Direction

Well. It looks like things are most likely not going to work out between me and St Martins. Despite all my work and all my desire to stay here, it seems the university does not feel the same way.

I have another meeting with the Dean tomorrow, and that will determine a lot about what I do next.

I am distraught at the thought of leaving London. No, "distraught" is putting it mildly. Let's say I feel as though my very being has been battered and humiliated. It's all I can do to get out of bed and face the day ahead of me. I feel as though I was offered the chance of a lifetime and then laughed at when I dared to reach for it. There was a moment when I really felt I could do this. I felt I could make this happen. I felt I could be the next big thing. But I stumbled a little early on in the year, and the school has never let me recover from it.

I cannot bear the thought of returning home to San Francisco right now. I can't bear to face people when they ask why I'm back. My every instinct is telling me to run as far away from home as possible and never look back.

So if the meeting with the dean doesn't go well tomorrow, and this horror does in fact become my new failed reality, then I am going to indulge that impulse. I am going to stay in London for the next six months. I am going to travel alone and I am going to figure myself out, and reclaim what little of my soul I can.

I am going to go to Paris for a week. I am going to go to Milan and Venice. I am going to go to Berlin. I am going to buy a proper camera and I am going to take photos, indulge in my rediscovered passion for photography. I am going to sketch every day and drink too many cappuccinos. I will yell at Italian men for commenting on my ass, and I will smirk at the hairy french women that dress incredibly well. And maybe I will find something in those next couple of months that will enliven me again, and help me find the fight in me again.

And then I will decide what I want to do, and where I want to do it.

I have no portfolio to speak of, so I can't apply for any design jobs. But I am considering taking out one massive loan and getting a place for myself to work. I want to hire a seamstress and I will churn out a line of garments that are all Me. I will make things so ridiculous and amazing that when I show my friends at CSM what I'm working on, they will wish they could work with me. And fuck CSM and their ridiculous sketchbook/research book bullshit. I've learned so much about research and print and design processes that I don't give a shit if CSM doesn't like my sketchbooks. I spent all this time trying to figure out what they wanted so they wouldn't fail me.... so they would give me a fresh start, a chance to find out what I wanted. But they didn't. And I don't think they ever will.

The best revenge is success. Sometimes a good beating isn't so bad, but I'll settle for success.

Assumptions part 3: On Being Wrong

I think I should remove my foot from my mouth.

I talked shit on this blog about people I met in London, and I regret doing it now because those same people have turned out to be very cool for the most part. But I guess first impressions really do last, it seems. It's taken me a while to get over my initial opinions about some of my acquaintances.

But I realize I have my own prejudices and predetermined judgments about people that I shouldn't. Growing up in a liberal area, I prided myself on being SO open-minded and accepting. But the one sort of person I never had to deal with was a conservative. I see now that I had my own preconceptions about anyone with conservative views, and was predisposed to dislike them. But that was closed-minded of me. Much in the same way that I assumed any other American in London would turn out to be lame and creepy. It seems the people I looked down upon at the beginning of the school year have turned out to be very sweet, caring, kind-hearted people that I formed opinions about too quickly.

I considered deleting the posts about these people. But the truth of the matter is that those words reflect where I was mentally and emotionally at that time. And I think it's more honest of me to say that my opinions were wrong and have changed, instead of pretending that I never had those thoughts at all.

Perhaps I am too eager to define people as "potential friends" or "lame". Maybe I should give everyone a little more time in the future... because you never know who might take you by surprise one day.

Assumptions, part 2: On Boys

Boys have always been a bit tricky for me to be around. A psychiatrist would probably tell you that I grew up with no positive male role models and therefor have issues with the opposite sex. But if you ask me, I'd say that my issues with boys started in high school when I suddenly dropped 25lbs and began looking like a normal curvy girl.

To change from the fat girl quite suddenly into a 16 year old sex object is quite a mind fuck. For the first time men began to notice me and I quickly learned that I had a lot of power because of it. In response to this sudden outpouring of attention I became the world's biggest flirt. It was the only way I could both entice men and keep them at a safe emotional distance.

To this day I find it hard to speak to any guy without flirting. It is my default reaction to male attention, even the unwanted kind. In a way having a boyfriend has exacerbated this problem because I could flirt mercilessly and never feel the pressure to follow through. "I have a boyfriend," I could always say. My boyfriend knows I am a flirt and has no lame macho jealousy issues. If anything, he enjoys that I could make a few boys lust after the girl he gets to take home every night.

But everything is different in London. I don't have a boyfriend here to use as my excuse. I don't have someone to go stand next to who will kiss my neck and remind everyone that this one belongs to him. And so I have found that my social habits have been changing out of necessity.

First of all, I never go out. I am terrified of finding myself in an awkward situation with a guy and not knowing how to get out of it. That fear has lessened some. But I think my change in attitude really began when I met a friend whose boyfriend is such a great guy that I felt immediately at ease with him. I guess I never before realized that I could talk with a guy without our conversation ever having a flirtatious subtext. Inspired by this experience, I am trying very hard to understand how to separate flirting from talking when it comes to men. And I think I'm getting better at it.

Either that or I am just becoming very antisocial...

Assumptions, part 1

I think I've finally figured out why I have been so desperate to move home lately. Being female and raised in modern American culture, my self confidence is of course hanging on by a thread, dangling over a very steep fall. I suspect that St. Martins put a scissor to the thread.

Everyone makes assumptions about themselves. Your assumptions will subconsciously urge you to continue patterns of behavior that reinforce them. You of course never consider your own invisible expectations of life until they are severely challenged. In fact you probably didn't even realize you even had any before then.

Despite my perilous relationship with self confidence, there were quite a few assumptions hanging by that thread. I didn't realize what I had hanging out there until it fell and shattered. Picking up the shards, I am beginning to see the flimsy ideas I had about myself and my place in the world.

I want to think out loud a little bit, if you don't mind. I want to share what I'm thinking as I being to realize what my own assumptions were and are. Maybe if I can look them straight on, I can change them. Maybe I can adjust my attitude and sort of change how everything "behind the scenes" is working...

So....

I suspect that I have held a secret belief that I could be impressive without too much effort. That is not to say that I am lazy, but when I work relatively hard on something I generally do pretty well at it. I suppose I wanted to believe I was the kind of person who was naturally gifted at nearly everything.

But of course that isn't true. Anything that challenged that belief made me incredibly angry. When I took dance classes a few years back and couldn't make my body move the way I wanted, I became furious and gave up dancing entirely. The same was the case with drawing a few years before that. I am not very forgiving when it comes to the learning process. I expect myself to see something done and then be able to do it. If I can't, I hate myself for it because it makes me question the belief that I should be effortlessly good at everything.

I was at the top of my class in most subjects throughout school. I had gotten used to being praised even when I thought my work wasn't up the standard I imposed upon myself. Without realizing it I was living with the assumption that even when I didn't like my own work, it was always good anyhow. And then I came to Central St. Martins...

Right away I realized my idea of hard work had to change. What had been A+ quality work at my last school wouldn't even earn a passing grade here. What I had once been able to do without trying anything that didn't come naturally to me, I suddenly had to reach for. And half of the time I don't even know what exactly I'm trying to reach, but I know that I have to keep stretching myself in hopes of finding it.

I have no idea what I am aiming for, or how I intend to get there. But I know that part of the reason I am struggling now is that for the first time in my life, I realize that I have to work my ass off if I want to earn even a passing grade. And I don't even know what "working my ass off" really means! Now I am being challenged at every step of the way, and the assumption I held that I could do quite well with only a little effort has been destroyed. Even my idea of what "effort" meant has had to change, and is still changing.

This is one assumption that, despite being shattered into pieces, is dying off very slowly. I think I still cling to the hope that somewhere inside of me is a natural talent that will come save me. But I guess the only thing that will save me now is lots and lots and lots of effort.