Unexpected Evening

I was dreading going to my Graphic Design class tonight. 3 weeks ago the teacher gave us what we all considered a nearly impossible assignment. He said he expected us all to fail the assignment. I hate teachers who do that. The assignment was very vague to begin with and what he actually wanted was not what he told us he wanted in the first place. What we had here was a failure to communicate. Then when I got to class tonight I heard that he had discussed our next assignment at length last week (when I didn't go because it was a "lab" night and I have the program at home). Needless to say, I was not a happy camper at that point.

In class two weeks ago I finally went for the Gordian Knott solution to the current assignment and said "screw it, I'm throwing out all the rules and I'm going to do my design this way". Turns out he liked my solution to the "problem". In fact, he liked my solution so much he went on about how brilliant it was for about 5 minutes tonight when I gave my presentation (somewhat embarrassing and rather gratifying). It was a creative solution to the problem. As I understood the assignment, I don't think my design solution fits the criteria, but he loved it which I guess is all that matters.

It was a very unexpected night. From bits and pieces of what other students told me (and the teacher discussed some of it again) I can get behind this next assignment. I'm not still thinking of dropping the class (the thought crossed my mind earlier tonight) and I feel a lot better about my art classes.

That happens a lot - things go in a different direction than I expect them to. Sometimes this is a good thing, sometimes it's not. Tonight it was a good thing. And you're probably wondering what any of this has to do with the picture I posted. Well, in the vein of things not being what they appear to be - the above sculpture started out life as one 2x4 (I think it was a 2x4 - it was all one piece of wood anyway). This was an assignment in my 3 dimensional art class several years ago (I LOVED that class). We had to make something out of a singles piece of wood, but we had to use all of it, we couldn't throw any of it away. This was my solution to that assignment. It was a bit of serendipity that this photo was scheduled for my blog today and the events that unfolded in class tonight.