(This short essay explains"what art means to me." It is an excerpt from a longer essay written while I was a student in a Bachelor of Fine Arts program at the University of Colorado Denver. I graduated Summa Cum Laude in 2016, shortly before moving to Virginia.)
I really do know why I’m doing this.
It gives me something stimulating to focus on during my retirement years, something that might help my brain from going completely to mush.
Golf is fine for the occasional physical diversion, and it offers all of the health benefits of a good cart ride ruined. But my steady output of three-putts and banana slices offers more mental anguish than mental stimulation.
In any case I only get to play golf with geezers like myself. On campus I am interacting with young, smart, ambitious people, and that is a good way to feel young— at least in mind and spirit.
Besides I’ve always liked photography, and have always wanted to give my right brain a chance to create something more artistic than animated PowerPoint charts—which pretty much sums up my Art output in 40 years as an engineer in the defense industry. I really don’t know how this will turn out; I really don’t know if I can make it all the way to a degree.
But I’m lucky enough to be able to try.