This year has been pretty wild so far.
The year started off with me thinking I was going in one direction and now has me going in a completely different one.
I started off the year finishing the last of my graduate school applications to schools I wanted to get a Master’s of Fine Art degree from. By March, that dream came to an end — I’d applied to six schools, and all six had rejected me without so much as an interview. The strange thing was that, other than a few days of grief that hit me about a week after the rejection had come in, I felt at peace with the results. Don’t get me wrong, I love my work, but I’ve always known that my work does not fit in the typical academic environment, and I’ve also known that I am not willing to change how I create to suit others and their visions. My work is good enough for me, even if it is not good enough for anyone else. I decided then that I would not be applying to MFA programs again; it’s too much effort to put in to be rejected, not to mention the expense, and my heart wasn’t in it anymore.
For a few weeks, I carried on as usual. Then, one night, it hit me that all I’d ever wanted to do since I was a small child who understood what the words “what do you want to be when you grow up?” meant was teach. I lamented the fact that I hadn’t gotten an education degree while in college — I love my art degree, of course, but I realized that it would be nearly impossible for me to do anything with it given my limited skillset in other forms of art and my lack of “people photography” skills. Then, I got to looking online to see what my options were; up to that point, I’d always thought my only option was to get another bachelor’s, but I was amazed to find that I could, in fact, get an alternative class A master’s in education if that’s what I wanted to do. For about a week, I chewed on this idea. I talked to a couple of people, got my courage up, and announced to my family that “I want to teach, and I’m going back to school to do it.”
At that point, I’d found two online programs — one that looked like it could work, but didn’t, and one at University of West Alabama, which was the first search result I found on Google the very first day I started looking. So, I sent a request for more information to UWA, and spent the next several days on the phone with various people from the school to start the admissions process. I started the process five weeks before the summer 1 term began, and spent the next month cramming for exams and getting fingerprints taken and all the other things you have to do to start an education program. In the end, I wound up in the Alternative Class A Certification program for my Master’s in Elementary Education.
Right now, I’m finishing up the last of my work for the first term, which went by much too quickly. While I am extremely proud of myself for taking this next step in life and trying to fulfill the dream I’d set for myself at the age of five, I can’t say it’s all been easy.
As happy as I am, there is a part of me that is grieving for the person I thought I was and was going to become. I’d spent three and a half years wanting more than anything to get my MFA and become a photography professor, and it has been hard to let that go. I still love photography, and I still believe that getting into and falling in love with it was the best thing I could have done at the age of 18. Now, at 26, things look a little different; I still love and continue to do photography, but I am also ready to take on the thing that was tugging on my heartstrings long before I ever knew I was an artist.
Part of me feels like a quitter and a fraud. I was and am so proud to tell people that I am an artist, and I spent a long time thinking that I would get my MFA and have a lifelong career in art; it is hard to reconcile within myself that this chapter has, for now at least, come to a close. I worked so hard to make myself be seen and heard as an artist, and part of me feels like a failure for stepping off that path. This line of thinking makes little sense, really, as I am not planning on giving up on photography or art; I am merely shifting my focus toward the person I am supposed to be — that I am called to be — instead of the person I was trying to force myself to be because I thought I had no other option. I am hoping to incorporate my love of art into my future classroom, and I am even planning on taking the Praxis to get my certification to teach art once I have finished with my master’s so that I have that option available to me in addition to being able to teach in a general classroom.
I am continuously reminding myself that just because I am starting a new life journey does not mean I cannot continue to love and do photography, even if it isn’t the primary focus of my life anymore. I am also continuously reminding myself that it is okay to feel sad that things didn’t work out the way I thought they should, even though I am on a much better path now.
In short,
It is okay to grieve who you thought you were while becoming who you are supposed to be.
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I still have a lot of plans for this blog and this website. However, with school and job-hunting, I am not sure when I will be able to post. The best place to catch updates from me is on my Instagram (kelseycollierphotography), where I am starting to post regularly again.
As always, if you have any suggestions for content you would like to see, leave a comment. or use the “contact” link above to send me an email.
Much love,
Kelsey