Sale on canvas prints! Use code ABCXYZ at checkout for a special discount!

Larger Than LITTLE and A Lie

Blogs: #69 of 321

Previous Next View All
Larger Than LITTLE and A Lie


After a few days of not feeling so well, I’m feeling a little better.

As I mentioned in last week’s post I didn’t major in Art while at UC Berkeley. Because Mama and Papa were paying for college, I didn’t think it was an option. Instead, I majored in English and I took a few art classes in between. I did well. And thanks to Keith Haring’s influence, I even received an A in my first figure drawing class.

Our professor, whose name I no longer recall, was a short Jewish woman with lots of energy and kinky wild hair. She encouraged us to paint larger than life and to use our entire bodies while painting. Though I never forgot her words, it’s interesting that I’m painting so small. But it’s who I am as artist and because of her I know that, at some point, I while paint large again. And if we were to be artists, she said we needed to paint for 8 hours a day. Otherwise, she didn’t want us in her classroom.


One morning before entering the classroom to inspect our finished projects, she peeked in through the door (with a coffee in hand) and asked us to hang our art work on the walls. After a few minutes, she walked in and immediately pointed to my piece and said something like, “This is one, this one. Who did this one?” Shyly, I raised my hand. She loved that my human figures were a bunch of obsessive line drawings(a la Keith Haring) instead of the traditional real to life human torsos that everyone else had done. I felt proud!

After all these years, I no longer have the piece that she was pointing to, but the piece shown here is similar in style. It’s Untitled; it was my final project. With thousands and thousands of dots, it was even more obsessive and time consuming to finish. Though it’s a little beat up, I still have it stored in my closet.

5 years after entering college, I lied to Mama and Papa. So as not to disappoint them, I went through graduation ceremonies. Because I unknowingly dropped a ‘required’ elective class in my last semester, I was one class short of receiving my diploma. Though my siblings and friends knew I had not officially graduated, I have never told Mama and Papa. After the ceremony, Mama quietly whispered into my ear, “Why didn’t you major in art?” Why hadn’t she told me years before? How would life been different? I wonder?

There’s no regret. I never did go back to receive my diploma; it was not important to me. I felt complete; I had received an amazing education. It's all I wanted in going to college. And so to Mama and Papa, I am eternally grateful for this gift. Thank you, you are my heroes.

And thank you for listening. Have a beauty of a week.