My autobiography

I'm not quite sure why I'm posting this. For my Art Criticism class, I was required to write a short autobiography in the style of Giorgio Vasari. I don't know if it was sufficiently flowery to qualify for "Vasari style" points, but it sufficed. Also, it's slightly untrue. Those of you who know me well or who were there for certain events mentioned below know this. Just go with it. It was easier to embellish than to go into the real details.

Anyway, here goes.....

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In the city of Omaha on the plains of Nebraska, a red-haired boy was born to Mom and Dad Sasquatch in 1968. This year marked a tumultuous time in the United States, and the proud parents wondered what kind of world was waiting to receive their child.

As a somewhat precocious gradeschooler, I dabbled in finger painting and macaroni art, even having my work put up on the bulletin board, to my eternal delight. Even at that tender age, though, I was not sufficiently foolish to believe that my art was necessarily better than that of my schoolmates. However, my art was good enough. Good enough was to become my rallying cry in the realm of the visual arts for a large part of my career.

Throughout my formative years, I learned about art theory--the color wheel, perspective, etc. While objectively I grasped the concepts, I was never able to execute any works that were truly great. They were good enough.

It wasn't until I received an undergraduate degree in political science and Spanish that my visual tides began to turn. In 1989, I used a Macintosh computer for the first time. From the moment I saw black pixels on a white field, I was smitten. Thanks to the geniuses at Xerox PARC and the questionably acquisitive nature of Messrs. Jobs and Wozniak, life would forever change for me.

After graduation, I didn't know how to tell my parents that I longed for a career in the applied arts. Instead, I continued my formal education in the stream I'd started, procuring a Master's degree in international policy studies. During the pursuit of this degree, I produced beautiful presentations and elegantly formatted research papers. They were better than good enough, but unnecessarily so.

Once I struck out to the East Coast to apply my newly-acquired degree, I realized that I had no network of contacts. So I temped, going from one dreary job to the next. One day in September 1993, my luck changed. The World Bank needed someone who knew how to use a Macintosh. From that day forward, I never looked back. I began teaching myself graphic design, not wanting to be a much-maligned "designer via software purchase." No, I devoured concept after concept--layout and typography, duotones and TIFFs--everything I could pour into my head. Finally, after 13 years I felt I had taught myself as much as I could (and, more importantly, had paid off my earlier student loans). It was time to pursue the degree I really wanted in the first place--a Master of Fine Arts in Graphic Design.

Applying to and being accepted by the Savannah College of Art and Design in the Spring of 2006 changed my life yet again. No longer did I have any annoying free time. Instead, I spent my nights and weekends studying, filling my brain to capacity with subjects ranging from the cave paintings at Lascaux to digital art installations.

The circle is not yet complete, and I have seven more quarters to undergo before receiving my MFA. Hopes are high, though, now that good enough is no longer good enough.