Art is Subjective by Alaina

Art is Subjective by Alaina - July 2021 Scholarship Essay

Neil deGrasse Tyson once expressed, “rational thoughts never drive people’s creativity the way emotions do.” As an interior design student who has endured tough criticism from a small-minded, old-fashioned teacher, this quote time travels me back to a moment in class that I have not allowed to wander out of my subconscious.
Giving some backstory to guide you through my perspective at that time, it was my freshman year of being an interior design student, and I was working on a design project for one of my design classes. This particular class tops the leaderboard as the most intensive, demanding class I have completed thus far. It required me to construct historically inspired designs and drafts by researching assigned periods of time such as the following: Art Nouveau, Shaker, French Country, Sheraton, and Farmhouse. Keep in mind, these projects were worth 100 points, and the total points for the class were a whopping 500 points. As you can imagine, it was stressful and caused me to be high-strung while I made sure each project I created was thoughtfully and intentionally planned out. These projects required me to design spaces such as bedrooms and living rooms. Further, I had to design and draft 2 different elevations of a room, construct two, 15” x 20” cold press boards with the first board including materials and finishes derived from the design period and the second board including 2 drafted, elevation designs, a key of furniture within those designs, and individual pictures of the chosen furniture, write a research paper, and present by thoroughly explaining how I derived my design from my assigned time period’s history.
On February 6th, 2020, I presented my first project, and I thought I did great with my entire piece of work. Class was ending, and I was waiting for my teacher to grade my project. I confidently walked up to my project, and a big, red D was placed on my work. My jaw instantly felt like it unhinged and was on the ground due to being in pure shock, and I was appalled by that letter. I thought to myself, “I am not going to pass this class with this one grade, especially if she gives me a hard time with my future projects. I spent over 10, cumulated hours working on this project to construct my vision of what a modern take of this design period would look like.” I pulled my teacher aside and asked for her to explain my grade. She refused to explain herself, and I walked back to my workstation feeling completely discouraged. I explained to my friends, Aimee and Jen, what just happened, and they told me that design is subjective, and I should stick up for myself and my work. I made my way over to the other side of the classroom and nearly begged my teacher for an explanation and a fair grade. She said my design looked like I put no effort into it, and she did not enjoy what she saw. To capture her energy, she made me feel worthless with the way she demolished my design, as if I had no potential. I had never been spoken to in that manner until that day, and her words of feedback hurt. My entire class opposed her decision, and I ended up receiving a high C. Ultimately, I still think I did not earn that low of a grade, and I loved what I created. At that moment, I truly realized that art is subjective.
All in all, I fully agree that “rational thoughts never drive people’s creativity the way emotions do”. I withdrew those emotions from her criticism and utilized that energy into my future projects. Onto my next design in that class, I was assigned Sheraton. I based my design’s color palette on dusty, cornflower blue, since it embodied all of the photographs that I researched from that time period. During class, she approached me with a questionable look plastered on her face when I was putting my materials and finishes together, and the closer she got, her face showed an impressed expression. She proclaimed, “I dislike the color blue, but I think you changed my mind with this design”. At this time, I was a tried-and-true people pleaser, so that little, opinionated comment refilled my confidence in myself. I hate to admit that I held onto her words that tightly, but every time I went to class after her discouraging remarks, I dreaded entering her class and listening to her commentary. From then on, I learned that being creative and producing art is always going to be subjective. Just because someone dislikes what you create does not necessarily mean it is bad. I remind myself that each piece of art has a story and to think about the mindset the artist had when producing the piece of work. That mindset will allow openness and insightful thoughts to flood your mind and make you expand your creativity.