Standing on the Shoulders of.... Me?

I received a mySpace message today from a nice bloke who went to my old art college. I'm guessing from his profile he went there probably 5 years after I left. He studied something completely different to me but wrote to say hello, and to tell me that he had heard about me from the staff there, having been touted as one of the college's success stories.

Fine, only I have a problem with being their poster child.

Normally I wouldn't have a problem with all this new-found renown, (it gives my oft-neglected Ego a jolt) but I feel the need to recount a little bit history here to set the record straight.

When I was still at Comprehensive School, (High School, to the American readers) during the last years thoughts turn to where next. For those seeking Higher Education, we picked our University Degrees, applied, got accepted/rejected based on exam grades and made to plans to leave home and speard out around the country. Thanks to an early interest in the field I wanted to study Computer Animation so that's the place I got, in a good institution that saw around 2000 applicants for around 50 undergrad positions. Obviously I was pretty happy about getting one of them, but I wanted to improve my traditional artistic skills before totally geeking out on the computer. At the time I wasn't quite ready to leave home and strike out on my own far away from my family, for the big wide world is a scary place and I only knew how to make beans on toast. It seemed like the right thing to do, so I deferred my place at Uni (one of the best decisions I have ever made, as I'm sure my fellow BAVISAN 2001'ers will agree) and decided to take a Foundation course in Art & Design at a semi-local art college. I could still live at home, but it was a fair way away so it felt like a good starting point for the Big Animation Adventure.

I was a year at Ponty, where I studied alongside lots of talented arty people. I think I was somewhat unusual in that I arrived on the first day with a definite plan of what I would be doing brain-wise for the next four years, and with my degree slot already waiting for me. In any case, we were all there to draw stuff and there were lots of different styles and abilities.

We had a go at the various disciplines under the "Art & Design" umbrella, and I tried to tailor my choices towards my future Animation-related path. There was actually decent Animation program at the college as well, but I wasn't on that course with no access to the equipment, so I worked on Animation Design stuff like storyboarding and character design.

Towards the end of the year all of the students had to choose the area they liked and specialise in it for the final project, culminating in the End of Year Show. I wanted to take Illustration, but the lecturer only accepted a small number of students and let me know fairly early on in the process that I had no chance. I wasn't one of the star talents by any stretch of the imagination, but I was still pretty moo. (I guess my style of drawing is really tight so I find it difficult to do those big, broad, creative strokes, and that showed in my figure drawing - technically OK but no life). Minor setback but, whatever. Choosing Graphic Design, at which I seemed to do pretty well, I continued trying to focus on the Animation stuff wherever possible by warping the assignments to fit my needs....

And so, with that incredibly dull backstory here's the thing. One day, one of the tutors, (let's call him Prof X as that sounds cool) took me aside to have a chat. Although not an animator himself, X proceeded to politely explain that I would never make it in my intended specialisation because I didn't have the ability. He suggested that I reconsider the place I had got at University and stay at college to do something else. At that point I had never set a keyframe, so I myself had no idea if I had what it takes, but I really didn't need that git telling me I was crap before I had even started.

As it turned out I did have something of a feeling for all this animation stuff, but whenever I think about this situation it makes me annoyed, and seems to go against everything a teacher should do to nurture potential. Where I got today was in spite of the place, rather than a result of it, by sticking to my guns and fighting the direction I was pushed in creatively. So yeah, when I hear that suddenly I am the darling of the college that tried to put a stick in my spokes you can see it encourages me to write long-winded ranty blog posts to vent my frustration.

It may seem like this has touched a nerve in a Super-Sized inferiority complex, but I feel that this stuff is important. From my time at the place that is the thing that has stuck.

To be a teacher is to have a significant amount of influence on a person's future, and to have duff one like Prof. X is a scary thought. What if I had listened to him? What would have happened if I didn't already have my degree place and I had to apply whilst at college? If on the teacher reference bit of the application our pal put that enlightening evaluation of my prospects I wouldn't even have got to interview at my Uni. No Uni, no fancy American job. No fancy American job, no learning from the best people in the industry, no life in SF with the Mesh, no being able to draw pics of Mr. Schleif's bean-shaped head.

It could all have been very different.

That's scary, right?