ihavebeenfloated

So today I got shot down in my ceramics class and it pissed me off so bad that I can’t see straight even now, an hour later.

I drew out a new idea for my next piece since the professor said my original idea might be too tall (at four feet, it was tall, I can agree.)

A cross was the centerpiece of this new project.

She stared at the sketch for a while and said, “Well, I see that it’s political, but I don’t really see the message… What’s the message?”

“I don’t have a message. I just go with feeling.”

“Well, if you’re going to use a cross you better have a message.”

...

I’m sorry, but fuck you. It was all I could do not to hit her in the face.

Message. I’m sorry, but I come from a rare breed of people who doesn’t think about message when it comes to art. In fact, I think people who read into art to find message, and/or some artists who create art with a specific message, should fuck off and die. I think building something with a specific message in mind is bullshit for the most part. I think an outside observer building message into a piece is bullshit entirely.

So, for art to be art, or for some symbols to be acceptable to use in art, I have to have a clear message in mind?

I can’t just use a cross for the sake of using a powerful symbol to evoke an emotional response? The response has to have meaning for it to be acceptable?

Fuck that shit. This is the kind of thing that I drop classes because of.

But, no, I’m not going to drop it.

If it wasn’t for the fact that the project she semi-rejected was far too difficult to build, I would build it anyway, regardless of what she thinks of my “lack of message”.

I’m just going to think of something else I can build that will have an even bigger cross with an even more ambiguous message in it.

Just to piss everyone off, I should build a Bible with flames leaping off of it.

Why do people insist that religious symbols are more important than the beliefs they signify?