Ugly Shoes and Abstract Art by Helen

Ugly Shoes and Abstract Art by Helen - February 2024 Scholarship Essay

My mother loves to wear ugly shoes. Her shoe selection criteria only contains two lonely entries: Are they comfortable? Are they functional? Something as finicky as aesthetics couldn’t even dream of making the cut. This brief checklist resulted in the tragedy that is her shoe closet, in which monstrous mule-sandal hybrids and terrifyingly clunky clogs lurk.

However, despite my sarcastic jibes about her choice of footwear, I too began practicing a comforting checklist worldview: Pizza needs pineapple and ham to be good. Music playlists need at least one Taylor Swift song to be road-trip worthy. Drawings in my sketchbook should have photorealistic details. But abstract art? The seemingly random splatters and blotches didn’t fit in any checklist.

Pit-pat, pit-pat. I smeared the raindrops off my glasses and hurried into the gallery, a faint “ting!” announcing my entrance. Inside, chubby rounds of sunflower yellow lounged on the paint-ridden canvases, while green dots pranced in perfect formation. In this quiet nook away from downtown hustle, a series of very abstract paintings proudly displayed themselves.

Ugh. I guess overpriced scribbles are still better than a cold midday shower.

I tried staring deeply at the rectangular pieces of mystery, hoping time itself could coax them to reveal their meaning. Did the dots represent humans? Perhaps the yellow represents happiness. Or…were they just colossal wheels of moldy cheddar? Luckily, there’s nothing a quick googling couldn’t solve, right?

“How..to…understand….abstract.….art…...”

The search engine cranked away, calling upon its superior algorithms, piecing together the perfect answer when…bam! A duct-taped banana. I scrolled down. A fur-covered teacup. Gazelle fur, like the deer-looking one. To say I was confused was an understatement. I couldn’t find any coherent rhyme or reason to these artworks.

Weeks later, the gallery sent me an advertisement regarding a tour of the artist, Stella’s studio. While avoiding another pointlessly awkward experience was the clear way to go, my remnant frustration stubbornly chose otherwise.

Stella’s San Francisco studio was bright and spacious, filled to the brim with folds of fabric and scrunches of paint. As we walked, I smiled at the thought of her finally unveiling the secrets behind her works, to demystify the flowing lines of foreign languages and splatters of unfamiliar tastes.

“My works do not have one defined interpretation.”

Oh god. Stella started recounting the wide variety of interpretations she’s received, explaining how a single painting could even be comprehended in polar opposite ways. Her deformed figures and chaotic collages were not bound to one takeaway, one correct answer. Her words challenged me to open my mind to the possibility that abstract art may not need a checklist. I started thinking that maybe classical technique and fidelity to life weren’t indispensable standards for thought-provoking art.

Curiosity officially piqued, I signed up to become her student. In our classes, I paired corrugated cardboard with rusty oranges and bright blues to produce my interpretation of San Francisco. I stretched canvases, mixed paints, ripped, pulled, and pasted, utilizing every possible means to create. It was liberating. This was my formal introduction into abstract art, but, more importantly, it was my induction to the art of putting away the checklist.

While I still don’t completely understand every abstract art piece, I'm now comfortable with the ambiguity they present. No longer reliant on clear boundaries and criteria, I have eye-opening dinner discussions about our healthcare system with my father over our favorite kimchi-jjigae, wrestle with multiple interpretations of 1984 during English, and wonder at the multiple theories on why we dream in AP Psychology. By confronting my own resistance to abstraction, I’m now open to the diverse and complicated arguments I once dismissed, no longer avoiding things that defy easy categorization. By setting my brushstrokes free, I’ve freed myself as well.

Periwinkle spirals, indigo squiggles, slashes of plum purple. “Ting!” As the gallery’s newest intern, I smile from the front desk, welcoming the visitors inside.