He was right. The guy from my university art class who said my final term project would end up in a box, forgotten.
He wanted to buy it from me, was persistent about it, but I kept turning him down. I had spent countless days and nights working in the studio, I wasn’t ready to let it go.
But he was right. I completed my fine arts degree and moved on to the education program, graduating in 2003, the year I also got married and was hired to teach second grade at a nearby school. Life continued while my art project sat in a box, stored in the basement at my parent’s house, collecting dust.
Fifteen years later, it’s still sitting in a box.
How did that happen?
Fifteen years ago I told him,
No, you’re wrong.
But he already knew something I didn’t. Part of creating is letting go. My work was done. I had poured myself into that piece, but it was done and I needed to let it go.
It was never my job to decide the role my art would have in the world, it was only my job to create and let go.
But instead it sits, collecting dust.
