Natural Resolution

This website has been my sounding board for the past three years, a place where I have thrown my thoughts and ideas into the deathly silent abyss of the internet. Many of my posts have been inconsequential – although I have been paid to write for the past few years I by no means consider myself a writer – but every so often I stumbled into a post that meant something. The posts which people commented on, that prompted peers and professors to stop me before class and revealed that my private abyss was much more visible than it ever felt.

Looking through my old posts there are clear trends beyond my obvious affinity for opera. Fear of failure, pride in my unlikely duality and a refusal to be defined by external forces subtly accented my posts just as they lingered in my daily thoughts and actions. These undercurrents, the parts of me that are not pretty or glamorous or perfect, were revealed, unpacked and resolved here in a quiet corner of the internet. While not every post provided some deep insight into art, music or life, I strived above all things to be honest

Now my time as a student is coming to a close and with that I will lose the privilege of being an Arts Ink blogger. It is odd approaching graduation; I am neither excited or scared by the concept of receiving my diploma, or phased by the notion that so much will change in less than two weeks. Rather, I feel and I am ready. I have accomplished all that I can here and it is time to move on to the next adventure. Just as my time with UMGASS or Ann Arbor Civic Theater naturally resolved and pushed me on to my next feat, it is time to post my last few thoughts and allow a new student the same privilege that Arts at Michigan afforded me for so long.

If there is one message which I can impress upon you it is this: be honest in your life and in your art. Art created for the sake of beauty alone is meaningless. I do not care, and will not remember if every note is perfect, each line of a drawing unerring or if every word flows out uninterrupted. I will forget and be unaffected, because perfection is not real and not relevant to me or my life. Yet, show me something true and honest, dirty, broken and hidden and I will see myself. I will see my life reflected in your vulnerability and be swayed by the influence of your art. I can only hope that every now and then I accomplished this here, and will continue to strive for these lofty goals whatever the next adventure.