In the last year of my studies, I did an independent study with a painting professor I admired. The previous summer, I had attended his summer painting intensive in Iceland with other painting and printmaking students. During that trip, he gave my work a lot of praise, and it really made me feel like I was a painter.

At first, he was hesitant about doing the independent study with me, but eventually he agreed. In the end, we only met twice over the semester. I vaguely remember the first meeting. I think he visited my studio, which at the time was in the glass studios. I was making “paintings” with long pieces of colored string draped around my tiny studio. I remember him being sort of neutral about the work, but he thought it was heading somewhere.

The next and final time we met was at his studio in West Oakland. His studio was at the back of a long creme colored twisting tile hallway. Inside, it felt like a gallery: a huge skylight and florescent lighting. His paintings were very minimal, often just single color fields. He was really into materials: handmade paints, special linen and canvas.

At the end of the independent study, I was supposed to present a new work I'd made during the semester. Instead, I’d used the extra time the study gave me to focus on my other courses. The night before our final meeting, I came up with a last minute idea. I made some "loop" drawings on printer paper using different colored pencils. Just a series of lines that looped and crossed. It took an hour to make them. For some reason, I was convinced he would love them. The movement of making the loops felt good in my mind, and I thought he would obviously understand that haha.

The next morning I biked over to his studio, anxious to show him the drawings. I was worried he might think it was a joke with all these quickly made sketches but I also felt that if anyone he would understand, that he would feel what I had felt.

He paged through the stack. I could tell he wasn’t happy. I tried to explain a bit, but the words couldn’t carry the feeling I’d had while making them. He set the drawings down, looked at me with a harsh expression, very unusual for him, and simply said, "these are not good." Then his face returned to its usual jolly expression. He signed the independent study form with the highest marks and walked me to the door.

I remember biking home feeling confused. I felt like I had let him down, but I also felt misunderstood. Yes, it was rushed work, but I didn’t think it was all terrible. It felt like something important had been missed. Like a whole conversation hadn’t happened. I wanted to convey why I felt so good about the drawings, how the feeling of making them was what mattered.

I stopped painting and drawing around that time. It might have also been due to graduating and shifting priorities, but looking back on it I do think this affected it a bit too. I think it got to me, even if I didn’t see it clearly then. But I also think something good came from it. I had been trying to make paintings and drawings I thought he would like. In some way, this experience broke that cycle. I was free, in a way.