Sometimes, You Can’t Listen To The Experts!

Just like Daren, my first experience with “Dumpster Diving” was in collage…I was taking a Three Dimensional required course and our final project was to make a Three Dimensional piece of our choice. At the time I was into creating things with glass…An old boyfriend worked at a glass shop and had taught me how to cut glass as well as sandblast. I figured nobody else would be using glass, so for my final project I decided to make a clear glass table with a sandcastle in the center! The only problem was, I needed glass! So a friend and I went to Henderson glass, after they closed, and “Dumpster Dove” for some scrap glass! The next thing I knew, we were surrounded by a couple police cars with their lights flashing! They thought we were trying to rob the store! After I explained that I was an art student just looking for discarded glass for my 3D project they let us go! Who knew actually diving into dumpsters was frowned upon and possibly illegal!

The project turned out pretty cool…it was a small glass table. I used Pepsi bottles, cut in half, as the table legs. The glass top sat between the bottle pieces and had a sun sandblasted into the center of it. In the center, under the table top, was a glass box with a sandcastle in it. I made the sandcastle out of cardboard and sand. The whole thing was meant to represent summer. I loved how it turned out and was very proud of it! I thought for sure I would receive an A+

I will always remember this project, not because of what I made, but because of what my teacher said and how he reacted. Instead of an A, I received a C-! I was so mad, I chucked the table into my truck and it shattered into pieces. (I still regret that I never took pictures). When I asked why such a low grade the teacher actually told me that he didn’t believe that I had created the project! He didn’t see me cut the glass or sandblast it, so to him, I did not create it. I MUST of had some help. I was flabbergasted…and pissed! WHY would he think that I could not create something so unique and original? Was that not their objective? To teach us to be our own artist? I quickly realized the answer was no, many professors wanted us to learn their way of art. They wanted us to experience art the way they did. Which, to me, was limiting.

It wasn’t until after art school that I began to experiment and find out what kind of artist I wanted to be…and then I met Daren. He was one of the few people I’ve met that was as passionate about art as I was and also loved to experiment and learn new things! We enjoy some of the same art styles but also enjoy drastically different mediums which seems to work well together. Once we started creating art pieces together, our style just fell into place so easily. The moral of the story is…the “Experts” are only limited to what they know. Don’t let anyone tell you that your doing what you love, wrong! Keep doing it your way!

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