I went to my alma mater and it seemed different, almost lost from my memory. It did not match. Not in that “it seems smaller now” way. It didn’t look right. It didn’t sound right, but most importantly, it did not smell right. students talk but don’t bump into each other. they still wear eyeglasses, but now plug their ears with ipods. studio experience is now the cubicle experience. I may as well have gone back to Oracle.

The studio is messy; it drips, it tears, it sticks, it smells, it cuts. Luckily I walked down the big ramp to the basement and found someone welding; it cut through the empty smell. Dirty, grungy industrial art being fabricated. Metal heavy in smell, metal heavy to the touch, sharp in smell, sharp to the touch.

At last here it was, art – the basement experience of my college years. The studio where you pounded out your art. Art school, where you pounded out your ideas with other art students. A place with smells, sounds, sights… a studio full of experience, not a place to share a plug strip or wifi connection. A place were conversation stuck, a place were paint dripped, models ate yogurt as first year drawing students stared trying to see more than anyone else. To see more than they ever could share, but to try.