•••••• Dealing with College Student Envy ••••

The entire Art Center experience was a three-year journey of personal growth, shaped within an intense system designed to mirror military training for the arts. In all honesty, that was one of the very reasons I chose the school. It had a reputation as a demanding yet deeply rewarding place to improve artistic skills, where only the most dedicated could succeed amid fierce competition.  Even so, I was hardly prepared for what I would encounter on my first day among my fellow students.

First, a bit of background.

Art Center was widely known as the place to study if you aspired to become a “commercial” artist. By the time I enrolled, it had been established for roughly fifty years. In all that time, it was exceedingly rare for the school to grant advanced standing by allowing students to skip any portion of its rigorous four-year program. Rarer still was direct placement into the second year.  In fact, such placement had almost never been granted, especially not to someone who wasn’t transferring from another respected institution.

Until me.

I was fortunate enough to begin my Art Center experience in the fourth trimester. What I hadn’t anticipated, however, was the undercurrent of envy and hostility that greeted me from my new classmates. People would attempt to befriend me, but often their intentions seemed less than genuine.

There was one question nearly everyone asked. Strange as it may sound, almost every conversation eventually circled back to it:

“So… who is your father?”

Or, more subtly, “What does your father do?” 

Not once did they ask what kind of camera I preferred, what film I liked to use, or which photographers inspired me. Their curiosity was not about my work or creative interests, but about how I had managed to bypass the first three terms.  With the assumption being that my father paid my way into that advancement. Nope.

All except one person: Frank Schaefer. And later on, an illustrator /roommate Jeff Del Nero. There is a reason we have remained friends for many decades. Even then, they revealed themselves to be a genuine men of integrity who valued character over stature or circumstance. My kind of guys.

As for the others, one of many examples stands out. This person specialized in fashion photography, and his images were undeniably beautiful, meticulously crafted, artistic, and filled with striking, confident models. Since I was new to the area and had no connections, I once asked him if he knew where I might find models for a shoot.

His response?

“No. I don’t know anyone.”

It was a revealing moment. From then on, I never asked him, or most others, for help again. And I kept that promise.

That was the prevailing atmosphere. As a result, I rarely sought assistance, and in turn, rarely offered it. Later, when classmates would ask how I managed to waive certain classes or navigate the system in unconventional ways, my usual response was simple: I just did it.

Unsurprisingly, this did little to endear me to my peers. But by then, it no longer mattered. Few had already shown little interest in a genuine connection. It was an early and valuable life lesson: be kind to others, but when that kindness is not reciprocated, it is not worth investing further energy.

I gained many life insights attending college.  But the first lesson was “do until others” works best when they return that gesture.