So I have been living in Rome for 2 and a half months now, and have not said a word. I have been so busy, I hardly have time for the computer anymore. I feel like I am always going going going. Working on things for school, running around for on site classes. When I have free time that is when I do my wash, grocery shop, or clean my apartment! There is nearly no time to just sit around, I spend almost every waking hour at school, if not in class then in my studio.
This is not a complaint, this is just what it really is like for me right now. I do love it here, and feel that studying abroad is one of the best, and most important choices I have ever made. I have seen so many things I could only have dreamed of. Just the other day I was sitting in the Pantheon drawing and reflecting upon Raphael's tomb (he is buried there) and I could not even believe it. Seriously, am I really sitting next to the bones of one of the greatest masters of painting and sitting in this infamous building that has inspired so many for ages? Sometimes I have to step back for a moment and pinch myself, otherwise I just float along and seem to forget where I am.
I have made a lot of friends here and I am so thankful for that! It makes me feel not so alone and weird, I am gaining more confidence and more and more hope. I feel I am starting to come out of my shell, but still I have not completely shed it. I usually feel fine when I am just among a few people that I know, but put me into a large group of people, especially people I do not know well and I feel myself curling up inside and wanting to get away. I really wish I could shake this old habit of feeling. I don't know why people frighten me so much! It is really stupid, I know that. I think that the more I put myself out there, the more I will see that I can be accepted and am not strange. I can't really explain why my default feeling is that of an outsider.
Lately I have been struggling again with feeling of inadequacy when it comes to my artwork, being in art school does that! I never feel totally confident in critiques, but I am starting to just accept the fact that my work is never going to be seen as "good enough" for the fine art world, and whatever...I don't really care. I just do what speaks to me, express what I want to express. I am feeling more and more that my art is just for me. I can't do things just because I think it is what people want. It just gets discouraging sometimes. I feel like so many people at my school thing of things conceptually, and the majority of people in my school are working with abstract art. ugh.
Anyway, now it sounds like this entry is just for the purpose of complaining. But really, I am righting this to center myself for a moment, something I have not had the chance to do often here.
Here is some art I have been making! There is so much more, it will just take a while to photograph and scan. The top picture is my drawing class.
