A Simple Girl from Simple Means.

"You have the chance to love someone who loves you with all her soul. Most people are never that lucky," Jane Eyre

Well Ladies and Gentlemen,
You are looking at a girl with one college degree in the bag.

• Why get your Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting?
• Why dual major in Sculpture?
• How much is this all really worth?

This is funny to me because if you would have asked me these questions this past summer I would have said, "I don't know. I am not sure. and It's not worth it." However, I am no longer struggling to answer these questions.
My answers are:

• I didn't start out in Fine Arts, I started out in Art Education. I switched because I reached a point where I knew I wanted to learn more and be more skilled in the arts than my current degree required. I was enrolled in an Intro to Oil class and fell in love. So, Why get my BFA in painting? I did it becuase I cannot see me doing anything else with my life. I love to paint. My hand itches to do it. To allow myself to go into a trance and just see and put down with oil and a brush on canvas what others cannot. I want to reveal things which normally hidden.  Things we push deep down and choose not to confront. Feeling alone and misunderstood when really everyone goes through these things at one point or another. 
• Why Sculpture? Because I love working with my hands. Again I love seeing and being able to get out forms that reveal what is normally hidden. 
• How much is this all really worth. To someone practical like my father, it makes no sense why I would bother wasting so much money on two degrees I cannot go out and readily get a job with, however; to me these degrees are worth so much more. they are indespensible and priceless to me. I have come to terms with the fact I will always have to have a day job to support my art habit, but somehow that doesn't worry or bother me. I would go stir crazy without a seperate occupation to distract me from my studio at least some of the time.  

Why do I feel the need to explain all of this? I hope to have people better understand how serious I am about this. This is not just some passing fancy, it is the way of life I have chosen.

Anyway, I am done with painting. ...well my painting degree, yes. But painting, no. I am taking one hour independent study in Advanced Painting Studio. I couldn't help it. When one of my painting professors, Kevin, offered to work with me again this next semester I nearly cried. I had this silly notion that once my BFA show went up that no one would want me up there in studio. I felt like I had finished and I shouldnt need that space upstairs. Yet every time I tried to move out last week I would start to dry sob and hyperventilate. I would then drop whatever I was trying to pick up and move, turn around and walk out. Silly, right? Yes, I know it was...now.

It is so odd finally being done, like officially done, with painting. I never thought I would get to this point. This last summer, I almost chose not to come back. I felt heartsick and defeated. Can I tell you a secret. I had one painting left to 'flesh out' the morning that I was supposed to hang. It was about 6:30 am and I had to be down in the gallery at 11. I stood infront of 'Syrup and Honey,' the painting from above in my title, and I wept. I wept because I realized I had beat the odds. I was almost finished but knew I never could be finished. I would never allow myself to be done with painting. I finally layed one of my demons to rest. I wished for one person to be standing beside me at that moment. Just this one person, so I could turn and look at this person and tell them, "I am Bridget Louise Lee and I am a strong person. A beautiful person. A person who knows how to chop and change. You let me go, that was your loss not mine. Not mine...not anymore." It was so intense and I knew that this would not be the last time, that was such an exciting thought, that is when I dried it up, picked up my Escoda Brush, and finished what I started.

This semester has been filled with SO much. I have made so many new connections, even though I let a few go. These connections, these people, these friends, have helped me grow as a person. I would like to think I had a hand in helping them grow too.

I also learned how and when to keep things to myself. If you have nothing nice to say don't say it at all. Fair enough, easy enough, but yet it was such a hard lesson for me to learn. I am still working on it.

Anyway, I feel like something has changed. For the better, for the worse? I am not sure yet. It just has and it was meant to be what it is. I am aware and that is enough.

I don't know? I suppose this is just a long blog about nothing much at all, but I feel it all needed to be said.

Bridget