i'm a design student.
i'm a design student at an engineering school, though i'm sure that's not an excuse.

sometimes it's hard to remember that there's a difference between an artist and a designer. that we're being taught to be designers and they have no interest in our artistry beyond that it furthers our design work. i think one of the most important things we learn is to separate those two. because i don't think art can be taught and i don't think creativity can be forced. but we are learning a creativity that has nothing to do with inspiration or expression.

we are learning to take the light that is the creative pulse, and put against it a magnifying glass made of expectations and deadlines and regulations, and focus everything on one poor ant of a project.

i've always seen art as a feline thing, subject to its own laws and its own judgement.

sometimes, these classes feel like taking a leopard, putting it in a harness and hitching it to a plough.

and while i'm sure a leopard could pull a plough pretty damned well, i'm not sure that it would still be a leopard if it did.