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Bear With Me, by Amy E. Fraser (Age 5, 1979)
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Here’s me in first grade, modeling my award
winning Bear With Me T-shirt design. From what I remember this super amazing bear
drawing won first place in our school competition, beating out all of the other
students, grades 1-6. Not that you can tell from my bored expression but this
was a pretty exciting accomplishment for a five year old and it probably set in
stone my one and only career choice of *Artist*. You might say the Amy
E. Fraser Artist Brand originated in this moment (lol). These sorts of accolades and
awards continued for me throughout grade school and high school. Thanks to the
support and encouragement of my step father I was also able to supplement my
art education with college art courses throughout high school and was chosen to
participate in numerous art electives like glass blowing and interior design. All
of which played a part in my acceptance to Parsons School of Design. This
sounds like a big deal for a small town country girl. And it was, Parsons is an
elite art school (ranked #1 for Art and Design in the USA and #2 in the world), the Ego was certainly a thing… But oh let me tell you! The
first day of orientation I received a serious reality check. All of
us are sitting in the packed theater sweating our butts off (but still affecting
our best art school airs) when the speaker says something along the lines of “each
and every one of you was voted Most Artistic in your class, your school, maybe
even your town, but get over it because now you are just one small fish in a giant
sea of artists of your caliber or better”. Ouch. Bye Ego. Rewind, rethink,
deflate, rebuild.
The moral of today’s art story? Trim down your
Artist Biography! Please don’t take this the wrong way because trust me, I’ve
made this mistake as well. But I’ve recently been reading your biographies and some
of you sound like you think your pretty special... The reality is that no one
cares that you have been an artist since birth, or that you won every art award
at the county fair. That is not original or unique, and quite frankly it is similar
for most of us who call ourselves Artists. Don’t bore your future patrons or gallery
prospects with the same old, been there, heard that artist tale. Wow them with
something truly distinctive to just you. Be Authentic, but never Ordinary! This
is tough love, and I’m sorry if it is painful to hear, but someone had to tell
you.
When in doubt, always remind yourself of the immortal words spoken by my
favorite art school drag queen “Oh Honey, Calm Down, We Are All Fabulous Here!”
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