how I love atelier

 I started art classes when I was five. At my first art teacher's house, I would pick pictures of animal cartoons off the internet and draw copies of them with oil pastels and sharpies. I'd go to her house once every week and leave with a new drawing. To be honest, she would draw the whole thing, and I would color it. Since I loved to color cute, frivolous things, I was content with this arrangement. 

When I moved to Troy, I switched to the Long Long art studio. Here, I had classmates for the first time, in a building full of artwork and other students. We'd go on studio field trips to the DIA and Cranbrook museums. I remember marveling at the art of the older girls, asking to keep some of their drawings. To this day, Catherine Li's pencil sketch flower remains among a stack of papers in a corner of my room. 

My time there was really lovely, although I did not like how I was only assigned a drawing prompt and a box of colored sharpies each class. Inspired by Catherine's sketches, I yearned to learn how to draw, instead of just doodling random things each week. So I begged my parents to switch me to another one. 

Then, like a birthday present, came Chen Na's art studio. For two hours every week, I'd come to her office-studio and copy a reference photo that she handed me. I learned a lot from her-- how to paint in acrylic and watercolor, how to shade and color with pencils and ink, but mainly how to observe. I became adept at making comparisons, learning how to use negative space to measure my work. She taught me how to see what was really on the reference, instead of what I expected to be there. Also, every class, she would pass around one bucket of candy and one box of chips. It was at her studio that I discovered Hot Cheetos and these monstrosities:

They weren't even that good, but everyone else would take the better candies, so I'd be left with the hardened, half expired caramel thingys. Yum! 

During covid, when everything shifted to Zoom, Chen Na cut down a lot on her students due to health issues. And after I had submitted my three pieces to the annual Scholastic art competition, my parents pulled me from her classes, kicking and screaming, because I apparently "wasn't making real art with her". Whatever that meant!

Anyways, I am forever indebted to my parents for dragging me out of there, because it was after I left her studio that I found Atelier. 

Atelier School of Art is a studio in Royal Oak, a good 20 minutes away from my house and the farthest I'd ever driven for an art class. My first instructor, Andrew, got me through two of my first pieces. He let me choose my references, and for the first time, I started working on projects that I had complete control over. Of course, I could go on and on about how much Atelier has helped me to improve. But this is not nearly my favorite thing about this studio. 

What makes Atelier so special compared to all the other places I've taken classes at is its people. All of the studios I'd been at before had a pretty homogenous group of students. Mainly kids, mainly Chinese. At Atelier, there are students from all ages and circumstances. The instructors also come from a range of backgrounds, and are all extremely passionate about art. They've all taught me a lot about making art, but more importantly, they have taught me about life. 

I've seen students come and go, growing with each work they finish, both in confidence and skill. I've heard so many stories about careers and raising children, of the various ups and downs that come from living in our current society. Throughout all of it, I have come to realize just how privileged I am to be taking classes at this studio-- as it really is a luxury that not many can afford. Not only that, I'm extremely blessed to share six hours a week there with the most interesting, talented people I have ever met. 

Corporations and universities looove to brag about their diverse group of applicants or employees, to the point where it feels disingenuous. However, they're not exactly wrong for wanting to capitalize on this notion. Having diversity in a group forces us to both acknowledge our differences and search for the similarities within us, in order to truly connect with each other. 

This used to be America's trademark: The melting pot. This ideal was displayed proudly in much of the culture of the 2000s and 2010s. Like in Santana's Saucy, groups from all sorts of places came together to highlight our collective strengths, creating a space that was more cultured and much better than before.

As the social, political, and physical climate of America deteriorates, the nation trending continuously towards division, I feel that, more than ever, it's imperative not to forget this inter-cultural harmony that we once fostered so richly. Corporations control this nation by dicing us into small pieces, convincing us that we don't have enough in common to stand together against them. But, as obvious as it sounds, it is truly our differences that make us stronger. As Langston Hughes writes in his poem, 

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,

The rape and rot of graft, and stealth and lies,

We, the people, must redeem 

The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers

The mountains and the endless plain--

All, all the stretch of these great green states--

And make America again!