This is for the common app…
I’m using my own topic.
For an average teenager, life is not lived for the moment. We study to get into prestigious colleges for the four years ahead, we do chores to earn our allowances next week, we adhere to accepted styles to fit in today and not be alienated tomorrow. I had held strong to this truth and accepted it until I hit the second term of my sophomore year of high school, when I took my first studio art class.
My teacher, Mr. Potter, had an amazing reputation. During his whole career, he had never failed to send a student to their art college of choice. I started working in his classroom during free periods and after school. I felt as if my life finally had purpose. I lived every day with more enthusiasm, because I had power over people. A piece I did could make someone see something differently. A few line drawings done in a nude drawing class received comments like, I never knew a foot had so many twists and turns. Using different mediums to depict the same face made people notice different things about its features. Art became a part of my identity. When I made a new friend, I was identified as a disciple of Potter, as students would often joke.
It was during the summer after junior year when I began rethinking my dedication to art. By then it was assumed that I would attend a four-year art college after high school. By settling into this path paved by past disciples, I had forgotten my basic purpose in doing art, which was to challenge myself. For the past few months, my art was being done for the wrong reasons. I carried outrageously decorated sketchbooks because that was what artists were supposed to do. Instead of letting art become a part of me, I molded myself to the stereotype of what I thought an artist was supposed to be. As I sat down that day to review the last few years of my life, I realized that the last piece I had done that I was truly pleased with was a simple line drawing of a bathroom. I did not even remember where I had last put it. Obviously, my interest in art was fading. Within the first few weeks of senior year, I told Mr. Potter to drop me from the class. Surprisingly, he only nodded his head and told me I had made a good decision. My loss of interest had been evident to everyone but myself.
Sometimes, leaving something behind is the only way to move forward. Walking home the day I quit art, I felt happier than I had in a long time. I learned that I could still live with passion, without as definite a purpose as art. No longer confined to this one focus, the number of opportunities laid out before me now seems infinite. Letting go of the artist label was hard, but I feel as if I have shed a false skin. I can no longer hide behind the ideas people already have about me. Because dropping it has pushed me to prove myself in other areas, I could not be more content being a quitter.
I know it’s risky. Does it make me sound like too much of a quitter? Any comments or suggestions are appreciated.