LSU Spring Semester 2017:
My syllabus had me at 12 hours worth of classes, a full-time curriculum. These classes included three studio art classes (3 hours each) 2-3 times a week with a 1-hour art history class at least twice a week (I can't remember), which I thoroughly enjoyed and considered a nice break from the critiques of the other three classes. I had two-weekend jobs: Job #1, one weekend a month (still currently do), and Job #2 filled the rest of the weekends. Job #2 paid less, and it was easier to take time off, so I took the entire 16-week semester off from Job #2 and kept Job #1. When the majority of folks were out there spending those two days relaxing, sleeping, drinking, dressing up to go out somewhere on a Friday and Saturday night to attract the opposite or same sex, planning dinner and brunch dates, looking forward to Sundays bottomless mimosas after waiting an hour in line to get a table, I spent those two days exploring south Louisiana in four-wheel drive, paddling, or wadding through the swamps, marshes and sugar cane fields scouting locations and learning how to "paint with light."
During the week, I was back in the churn of Academia. My daylight hours were spent like any other student; attending class, taking notes, creating work for classes, enduring the lengthy drawn-out critiques, cramming for tests, and bullshitting my way through reading assignments that were hardly read from beginning to end. Then, when the sunset, teachers and TAs left for the day, and art studios were "officially closed" for after-class use, I was there editing on the computer, printing test strips, re-editing, more test strips, and then maybe a final edited print. My only company was my die-hard fellow night owl photography peers. After they left, the occasion janitorial staff member would catch me off guard after they had to endure Bon Jovi's "Wanted Dead or Alive" on repeat as it echoed through the hallways and dark, empty rooms of the three-story art building.
There were days and nights that I wouldn’t sleep. Sleep was a luxury of time that I did not have. To chase my goals, dreams, and philosophy, to pass classes, and to meet deadlines, staying awake over a twenty-four-hour period became a new norm. The trio of loud music, caffeine, and my thoughts kept me company on those lonesome nights on the way home from unplanned destinations I may or may not have photographed. They still do. During these lonely times, I would ponder what I was doing-creating. I asked myself, "Am I painting with light?" "Am I on the right right path?" Doubting myself on some of the loneliness of nights. Yet it all went away when I held the physical reassurance of my labors in the form of a final edited print. This reassurance gave me more energy than any drug and more confidence than any self-help book or pep talk that any military chaplain or psychologist with multiple PhDs could give me.
That semester wasn’t fueled with any Vyvanse or Adderall. Believe me, it would have been amazing. No, it was fueled with copious amounts of caffeine, a high-fat, low-carb diet ( I wanted to look sexy naked when I graduated; we all have our own goals), and a pure determination to create the best work at that point in time in my photography career. To accomplish all of these things, I knew that I had to be lean, not just physically but mentally. To quote Percy Cerutty, I needed "an unswerving devotion to an ideal." For this to happen, I had to minimize my distraction. No women, no social life, except for gallery receptions; most of my friends lived outside of the state, and I was in the midst of losing one I loved. The dopamine levels and other social media vices were held back to a certain extent.
That was my mindset and lifestyle during my last semester under the Umbrella of Academia. This is a glimpse of what it took to devote myself to an ideal, belief in a philosophy, and make "Hidden Louisiana" a reality. I know a few artists and professors do this not by their words but by their actions and work. I was fortunate to witness that type of devotion and determination and be capable of understanding what I witnessed from a few professors and mentors during my academic career. In the real world, past Academia, time isn’t gaged in semesters but in months and years. It's taken patience and endurance to engineer my life to continue forward with my philosophy. How often is that taught in Academia, patience, endurance, engineering your life so "you can live the lifestyle you want instead of paying lip service to it"?(Twitching with Twight)
