Dear Readers,
Three application cycles, months of deliberation, and hundreds of breakdowns later, I am enrolling in Tyler’s MFA painting program. Classes begin in a few weeks.
I started applying to MFA programs in 2019. I had entire friendships come and go during this time. It became my secondary hobby. I painted and applied to Master’s programs. Acquaintances would ask what I was up to, and I would say, “oh I am applying to MFAs this year.”
Part addiction, part passion project, the application cycle defined the rhythm of the past three years. I painted all summer and prepared for applications all fall. I attended information sessions and maintained complex spreadsheets to track each application. The past three Christmases were spent rewriting letters of interest where I tried, and often failed, to define exactly why I wanted an MFA so badly.
January through March was purgatory. I gained weight, I lost weight, and my face would break out in pimples. I cried too much. I was chained to my phone, rechecking my email every ten minutes hoping for acceptance emails. I broke down at each rejection– even to the schools that I knew I didn’t want to go to.
The first time I applied, it was almost on a whim. I had only started painting that previous March. I was confused about what I wanted to do with my life and Grad school seemed like an easy way out of a job I didn’t like very much. It was what you were supposed to do in your twenties. It was Now or Never.
I was surprised when I received my acceptance letter to Pratt on March 17th, 2020. This also happened to be the last day you could eat inside a restaurant in New York City for nearly a year. This was back during the “this will be a weird two weeks” phase of the pandemic. When we went to dinner that night to celebrate, we didn’t even think about covid until we realized we were some of the only people in a usually crowded Soho restaurant.
Quarantine came and I talked to the advisors at Pratt. They assured me everything would be normal by the fall. So I applied for loans, registered for classes, and enjoyed my Pratt.edu email address. I got excited. I realized I wanted it badly. I brainstormed projects and fantasized about my new studio. But in August, they broke the news that classes would be online and that no, they would not lower their $65k a year tuition.
I didn’t even have to make a pro/con list. $65,000 a year for an online art school was not worth it. $65,000 for an art graduate degree might not be worth it at all. The statistics are clear about how it was unlikely it was that I would ever pay off the debt.
I deferred. I sat in my living room filling out the form, part of me already knowing I would never go. My boyfriend said, “this is one of the harder decisions that you will make.”
I reapplied to affordable schools. It was peak covid. Before I knew what was happening, I already made the mistake of tying my self-worth to the application process.
I didn’t find out until June of 2021 that I was not accepted off any of the waitlists. Six schools, six rejections. All the letters said they were sorry but they had an unprecedented number of applications because of the pandemic, it was a very competitive year. Try again!
Devastated, I started questioning everything. Was I even a real artist? Could I even paint? What business did I have thinking I was a painter? Why was I doing the job I was doing anyways? When would my hard work pay off? Or was I not working hard enough?
I kept painting out of habit. Because I didn’t know what else to do and I was in too deep. I came home from work and I painted. It was about the act of getting paint onto the canvas, about continuing to make. When I thought too hard about what I was painting, I felt like I was looking into the sun, like my eyes would burn if I looked for too long. Needless to say, the work was not very good.
I enrolled in a Plein Air painting intensive that July where I stood under the Manhattan bridge every morning for two weeks and tried to paint what I saw. It was about a hundred degrees outside and I had never done anything like this before. But I went back every day with my easel and canvas. I sweated a lot. Somehow, the process reminded me that I could paint.
In a fit of insanity, I decided to apply again. I didn’t think too hard about it, I just came home from work and completed the applications. I white-knuckled my way through five different essays about why I wanted to go to five different schools.
And then I waited. And waited. All the schools said they had delays because of Covid. I thought too much about how if it hadn’t been for Covid, I would be finishing my second year at Pratt and drowning in debt.
What was worse, I would ask myself, the debt or the waiting? The debt or the rejection? Did I waste the past two years?
I broke and decided to change my life while I waited. I left my job, started this newsletter, and wrote articles for a food magazine. I began making reels. I traveled. I went to Miami, Costa Rica, Ohio (twice), Wisconsin, and Montana. I opened OK Gallery. I got new jobs that I enjoyed going to.
I made a life for myself in New York City that actually made sense.
But then the most unexpected thing happened– I got into Tyler.
I opened the acceptance email at a bagel shop in Greenpoint in the middle of the day. One would think I would have been elated. That I would have jumped for joy, hugged the guy behind the counter, and run out of the shop, cheering that my four years of hard work were finally paying off!
Instead, I started crying. All the waiting was over and a school that I could afford finally accepted me! Everything I had been working for! I could go to grad school! I could get my MFA!
My poor boyfriend was bewildered by my response. All I could say to him was, “it is complicated.”
I kept thinking about all the things that I only just started to figure out, like how to live my life. I was afraid of giving that up. Along with the other things I had worked hard for, like my new jobs that I enjoyed and the apartment that I loved. I was afraid that I would lose my friends and community in New York. It was the first time I considered what I would lose by going to grad school.
So I balked. I put off making the decision. I lived in denial.
But then I looked at my paintings for a long time. And I remembered myself two summers ago willing to go almost $200,000 to go to grad school. I thought about having my own studio and other art students to talk to. I could have a full wood shop. There would be professors and new skills to learn. I wouldn’t be painting alone in my apartment anymore. There would be other people to see my art. I might even get better at it.
If I want to be the artist that I think that I can be, that I so desperately want to be, I have to go back to school.
Now or Never. No Pain No Game. No Sacrifice No Reward.
So now, in a few weeks, I am taking the terrifying plunge and starting at Tyler.
As always, Thanks For Reading.
Sincerely,
Claire HarnEnz
What’s For Dinner?
My Roommate (and Boyfriend) decided to eat Japanese Curry from a place in Fort Greene named Chef Katsu at 4 pm. So I ate some English Toffee from Trader Joe’s while I finished this essay and called it a day.
Post Script
As I am going to be re-entering academia, Sunday Dinner is going to become an every other Sunday-type newsletter instead of every Sunday. This will keep me from burning out and the quality of the newsletter up.
Thank you to everyone who has subscribed and read this newsletter. I can’t express how much I appreciate it.
Claire,
You’re so honest, brave and I know it will all pay off in your future. The universe will deliver everything you reach for. I remember these feelings and I am motivated to rethink my life again Change is good! So excited to see, all you are about to create !! ❤️
Welcome to Philadelphia Claire,
The next chapter in your life.
It’s going to be great!