I have loved drawing for all my life, but I always considered free-lancing as too risky as a career path. My dream job was to create art every day, and eventually be able to display my work in the Chelsea galleries and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, sipping champagne with my sophisticated artist friends and chuckling in French. Unfortunately, through my college career thus far, this part of my life became neglected more and more as my work load becomes increasingly heavier, so much that my sketchbooks and paintbrushes are left to collect dust in the corner of my bookshelf.
When the four ~professional~ artists introduced themselves, and explained how they held full time jobs as graphic designers and still had time to pursue free-lance on the side, I was immediately in awe. This career path — doing art professionally and free-lancing on the side — was an option that I had never considered before. I admired these people so much for taking the risk to pursue their dreams, especially a risk that I was never willing to take. They were super heroes to me.
After their presentation, I brought up my own online art portfolio from high school to show them, and recited my own sob story of wanting to do art, but also never being able to risk my stable interest in math and technology to go for my dreams. They sympathized, but told me that they were pursing something that they really loved, and that they had to make sacrifices and risks of stability and certainty for their dreams. That’s something I’ll take to heart, and apply even beyond the scope of art and work. They left me with the hope that they would probably revisit Cornell in two years, and if they did, I could help them paint their mural. I am so excited.