The bitter joy of beginning
If I did not show them, they would not believe it. Every year is similar. The nervous and excited confusion in their eyes reminds me when I started my typographic journey. I tell them how I bad my work used to be but it is not until they see the proof that they realize the truth in my words.
It might be considered a gimmick, except that I lived it. Days of agony and mental confusion, endless sketches sometimes in the hundreds, mornings of critiques that instead of feeling like a lifesaver, felt more like a heavy object keeping me down and even more confused.
The bitter joy of beginning, I called it. I had come back to school to do something. Graphic design was a remote idea since I had never heard of it. My neighbor was a commercial artist but outside of that, the words, “graphic design” were pretty unknown to me.
My itch for the arts started early. Along with that, so was my penchant for filling notebook after notebook with drawings and even novels. I wish I had them today. Between so many moves and my mom’s cleaning sprees, only their memory remains. I drew. If I was bored, I drew. If I was sad, I drew. If I was passing the time, I drew. The ping pong table at my house and the one at my aunt’s house were more like huge spaces to draw. Comments about my talent would always follow but back then, being artist was the realm of bohemians and my dad would have none of it.
But, when I said I wanted to be an architect, ah! That was different. There was a tangible option for me. The problem? There was only one school of architecture back then. Admission was a separate process from admission to the university and a very competitive one. If you made the 100, the rumor was that the school would do everything in their power to weed people out. To say that I was intimidated is an understatement.
Nonetheless, I took the admission exam. When the results came, I did the math and 13 points kept me from the minimum required to enter. Crushed. Lost. Confused. And a long journey to find my place ensued until about a decade later.
After working as a junior high school teacher for close to five years, I craved and missed art making. A relocation to Ames, Iowa, a visit to ISU, a conversation with an admission advisor, a poster on the wall, and I enrolled to get a second bachelor degree but this time in Graphic Design. At least, initially. My art education portfolio did not have the breadth of work needed to be accepted in the MFA in Graphic Design.
…and what do you mean when you say do not stretch the letters??
Nothing prepared me for my first graphic design class. Typefaces, fonts, letters, compositions, abstractions, and what do you mean when you say do not stretch the letters?? I felt like a fish out of water. Approximately 10 years older than my classmates, no computer knowledge, and unmentionable names for the computer, my desire to study graphic design soon vanished.
Coming to critique to present a body of work that by my current eye’s standards was nothing but deplorable, and receive the death comments, left me hopeless. But, I wanted to fight. I wanted to understand even if I left the program. So, I pestered my professors during and off office hours. They probably saw me coming and would close the doors. I was relentless.
There was so much I did not know or understand. But, there was so much I did know and understand. My process was second to none. I researched, researched, and researched. Sketches and more sketches even if they were required overnight. The gap between the sketches and the computer was really wide. My typographic skills were really clunky but I while I picked up one skill, I banked on the skills I had: reading, writing, and sketching. Concepts and reasoning came easy to me. Execution would take me much longer.
Some of my students are like I was: eager but confused or lost. Or some are eager but unwilling to put in the work day and day out. Or some have a more or less stronger foundation than other students in the class and thus, a chip on their shoulder. Every one of them reminds me of who I was when I came back to school at different stages. And yet, none of the work I have seen since I started teaching typography has been as bad as what I presented that one October morning in 1994.
I keep the process binders because it reminds me that the path to mastery does not end. Each mastery of a skill is nothing but a semicolon, a colon, or an ampersand in the long sentences that come thereafter. And that process is nothing but beautiful. It is one thing when someone tells you there were really bad at something. It is quite another when they come out with the images and show you. I do not edit that out of my life. It is a sweet reminder that growth is always attainable.
And here we go, the images of said work:
Love,
Alma