I never really considered myself to be type A until I arrived in Florence.
Like many students, school has been a huge priority for me. For as long as I can remember, my brain has been wired to know it’s important to do well in school.
Obviously, my drive comes from wanting to have a career, but at times I am guilty of just wanting the satisfaction of an A on my transcript. I didn’t realize how hung up on the alphabet I truly am until I began to feel my grasp on straight As in Florence slip in the most unexpected class: watercolor painting.
It was the second week of class, and our first assignment was due in just a couple days. I had to recreate four postcards with watercolors. I was more panicked than I had been for an exam or assignment in a while.
We started out simple, by drawing bottles and mixing colors, but I found myself constantly comparing the work of other students to mine. I hadn’t painted or probably even colored since middle school, so I was extremely intimidated.
I decided to come into the art studio outside of class to catch up. My art professor, Jamie Morris, came up to see what I wanted to work on. Before I knew it, a jumble of words were flying out my mouth, saying everything from “I am so bad at art” to “I have no idea how I will finish all of these postcards on time.”
When I finally took a breath Morris glanced down at me and said, “I seriously recommend you just calm down. Just start painting.”
I went to say something about having a bad grade, and she rolled her eyes and said, “Oh, just have fun!”
Before I could say anything else a paintbrush was in my hand, a bucket of water to my left and a blank canvas in front of me.
Morris had walked away so my nervous breakdown about my inability to even draw stick figures was over whether I liked it or not. I had nothing left to do other than complete the task.
I felt myself being hesitant at first, thinking that mixing the wrong colors or using too big of a brush would lead to imperfections. I quickly realized perfection isn’t the goal in watercolor painting, in fact it’s letting the mistakes turn into something unexpectedly distinct.
As I put in my ear buds and allowed myself to paint not because I wanted an A or because I wanted my paintings to be a replica of the postcards I purchased, I found bliss.
Morris’s rather blunt advice to just calm down became evident with each new stroke of the paintbrush. My obsession with the grade got in the way of the reason I even decided to take art in Italy, to have fun.
Four weeks later, and now I giggle to myself as I just heard a fellow watercolor painting student say, “I hate how this isn’t graded objectively.”
Perhaps the opinion and approval we seek is too often from parents, professors or whoever else, and not the person we are always around, ourselves. I know my postcards aren’t a masterpiece, but I smile when I look at them, and quite frankly that’s all that matters.
