Congratulations

Today I gave a lecture about Painters Eleven at the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery. This was a really huge event in my life for a variety of reasons. Obviously me being able to give a talk about a subject I went to school for, in an institution that is directly involved in that field is a pretty big deal, but it also held a lot of personal significance for me.

At this point last year, I was unemployed and living in a shitty basement apartment with Mark. I had just moved to Waterloo and had been out of school for almost a year. Since graduating, I didn't really do much of anything and had a lot of trouble finding ways to apply myself to anything and even more trouble finding a job. I was in the worst mental state I've ever been in and was averaging an anxious breakdown per week. What's interesting to me is that today it is almost a year to the day that I emailed the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery about volunteering with them, so this seems like a good jumping off point.

Volunteering at the gallery seemed like a good idea to me because it was a good way for me to get my foot in the door at an institution and get some valuable experience. Once I started, I tried to be there as much as I could, whether it be helping with day camps, the Family Sunday program or even just cleaning up stuff in the classrooms. One program of particular importance was a week I spent helping out with the gallery's March Break Camp. The kids took to me, I got amazing experience, but most importantly, I actually felt like something I was doing mattered for once. The kids looked up to me and listened to what I had to say about art and I got to teach them, but the real crutch was how much having things that actually matter in my life turned me around.

The gallery posted summer jobs and obviously I knew that I should get one of the positions. However, one stipulation of the position was the applicant had to be returning to school. Up to this point, I had been asked by my parents if I would ever consider a graduate degree, but never taking it seriously. Upon seeing that if I wanted a job at a gallery, I would have to return to school, I knew it was something I would have to do. I written about my experience applying to school on here already, so I'll spare you the details. Long story short is that applying to the MAAHVC program at the University of Guelph is probably the best decision I've ever made.

One great part about my program is that for one of my courses I've been able to work as an intern at KW|AG in return for a credit. The end result of that internship is the talk that I gave today, at the gallery as part of their "Contemporary Art 101" lecture series.

On top of this, Beat Noir has since released an EP (that not many people liked) and a full-length (that it seems like most people liked!) and played a ton of shows that really beat the shit out of what we were doing before. And hell, now I'm also in the most serious relationship I've ever been in and that girl makes me happy every day.

What I'm writing all of this up for is that I really hate talking about myself and can be really self-critical and depreciating, so I often look down on what I'm doing. I just wanted to say "Congratulations Tim. You really kicked the shit out of this last year of your life man."