<p>I was initially confident about this essay, but now I don't know. I may have to use it for scholarship applications, any thoughts or suggestions?
I tried to stay true to myself. I have a sarcastic, witty outlook on life. I'm not always overtly optimistic or sun shiny and I tried to just convey my personality. Poor move?</p>
<p>LEtoile</p>
<pre><code>Im perceived usually as shy yet opinionated, pervasively sarcastic, a caricature of the leading lady in a black comedy. I love watching facial expressions change as I try to explain the parallels I find between life and art. Suddenly, I am completely disarmed. Im a gray cloud involuntarily transplanted to a valley of rainbows. Oh, of course, everything is beautiful, they scoff, and even I begrudgingly admit the saccharine. As assumptions cascade away, I dig myself in deeper and deeper. No, but just think about it, think about longevity, think about form. Im relentless, How original, how insightful, how idealistic. I cringe. Woodland animals are frolicking, the flowers beginning to sing. But not quite.
From an early age, my life has been inseparably intertwined with art. My father is a photographer; my mother is a graphic designer. My daycare center was an artists studio. Plagued by painfully sensitive skin and an allergic reaction to the mere sight of the outdoors, I spent my summer vacations in art centers. The walls of our home are papered with the work of famous painters: Botticelli, Degas, Renoir. Some children had imaginary friends, but I had masterpieces. Despite my gangly and often awkward frame, I frequently donned a tutu and danced alongside Degas LEtoile. Because of my childhood, I began to carry around a mental picture frame, an easel on which my lifes events were painted.
I carry this easel with me at all times. Every conversation, every interaction, even the slightest glance can become a masterpiece of a moment in time. At the times that my crippling shyness strikes, I watch the world around me from the safety of my private gallery. I watch a girl laughing on the sidewalk, the way the light lingers in the furrows of her wrinkled forehead and her hair blows back in waves. I watch two children running, their limbs heedlessly flailing. And then I sometimes watch myself, proceeding through the actions of daily life: that robotic stare of information-gathering in class, becoming the third guest debater on NPR during the ride to work, giggling like a child on the phone in the early hours of the next day. And painfully, I realize that though carried by constant momentum, I am unmoved.
The artist and the art critic are two vastly different species. The artist, vulnerable and introspective, bleeds creativity, using the paintbrush, the charcoal, the camera, as a means of the most intimate personal expression. The art critic, though appreciative, is self-possessed and judgmental, methodically categorizing, period, medium, composition, location. Despite notable and, perhaps, noble attempts, the art critic cannot become submerged in a masterpiece as the artist can.
Ive realized that in order to fully appreciate the beauty my life, I must open my gallery to the public, perhaps, put up a few pieces of my own. Life is not for bystanders and it is not an equation for the solving. Sometimes life, like the most powerful paintings, can be unknowingly tarnished by analysis. Sometimes appreciation is entirely superficial or irrational, and medium, form, composition have only placed art in the pages of history books.
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