Alex Francavilla - Week 3 - How to Ruin a Hobby (and Revive It)
From reading this year’s Padlet and Blogger comments on my posts (and real life comments, too), I have gotten the impression that you guys think I’m a “science kid”. And I won’t discredit them or try to refute that claim, because I, well, am a science kid. Science Olympiad is kind of my whole schtick (as is very evident from my first blog post). But if one were to look around my bedroom, it would seem like I’m a lot more of an artist than a scientist or an engineer. The origami creations scattered across my desk are already somewhat evident of that; so is the cabinet full of expensive art supplies. But nothing would catch one’s attention more than the drawings precariously taped to the wall—one of which is plastic-sealed and framed, with a mini plaque that reads: “Alex Francavilla. Grade 4. Second Place-2019. Ned Smith Center for Nature and Art.”
"Always By Your Side", complete with my goofy signature in the bottom right corner and the mispelling of "Freemont, California".
As a very young kid, I was as obsessed with drawing than I was with science, so much so that my parents opted to hire a private art teacher to hone my art skills and hopefully help me enjoy it more—and I did, eventually deciding with her to enter into the Ned Smith Center Art Contest, just because. And “my” drawing won second place. Take great notice of the quotation marks around “my”.
Because now the goal was to, of course, win the contest, the methodology for drawing the art piece was quite different. My art teacher and I would come up with concept sketches of what we wanted the final design to look like, and she would draw it while I would copy each and every single pencil stroke of hers. In the end, I would be left with a slightly different and slightly worse (remember, I was 11) drawing that wasn’t really mine.
I would like to emphasize that my art teacher was not a bad person in any way (one Christmas, she gave me a gift bag with a recipe for gingerbread cookies!). I just think that the transformation of a hobby of mine into an extremely volatile form of validation was not good for the childhood development of my hobbies and enjoyments.
And thus, I stopped drawing.
After my last contest drawing almost exactly 3 years ago today (which was the only other piece among the 7-8 I drew to even get recognition), my parents could see my declining interest and pulled me from the private class. I’d wager that for most of 9th grade, I didn’t draw a single dedicated, ambitious, or passionate piece for even more than a couple minutes.
Now, I’ve found my love for sketching and doodling cats and insects like weevils. It's an extreme contrast to my past art expression—I haven’t colored in a drawing since forever—but I no longer have so much pressure to make anything perfect or “good enough”. They make me happy and, equally if not more importantly, they make other people happy.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHi Alex! Your experience of having a hobby that you genuinely love turn into something defined by pressure and validation, and then later finding your way back to it on your own is one I can fully relate to. Only in my case, it was dance that I grew to dislike after constantly associating it with a toxic environment and always feeling the pressure to be the “best” dancer in my class. Even though I had been dancing for most of my life, I allowed myself to take some space from it; eventually, I started to dance again for less serious occasions, like weddings or Spirit Week.
ReplyDeleteReading your blog made me realize that the pressure to be perfect or excel at our hobbies can sometimes take away the whole joy of having those hobbies, and how stepping back and relinquishing our hold might actually be the key to let us reconnect with what made us fall in love with our passions in the first place. I also think your story is a good example of the fact that it’s okay to let our hobbies evolve, because just like us, they are constantly changing over the years, and to not let them evolve would be doing ourselves a major disservice.
Hi Alex!! I think this blog touches upon a very important point. Anytime anybody asks me what I want to do in the future, I only really have one response: "I don't want to write code." If you had asked me the same question six years earlier, though, I would have enthusiastically responded with a desire to work with computers. I deeply relate to your experience of having a hobby ruined once it became less about enjoyment and more about... winning. The same thing happened to me as my parents threw me into coding classes and projects that only killed my curiosity. I also relate to your intro—I feel that people at school mostly perceive me as academically focused and as nothing else; while I do enjoy my academics, it's sometimes a reductive way to be perceived. I think your art is amazing, whether it be the paintings hanging on your wall or the doodles that decorate your notebooks.
ReplyDeleteHi Alex! I’m glad that you discussed this because I feel like it’s so relatable! As children, we pursue our passions from an inexperienced perspective, and sometimes the people who watch over us are give us too many shortcuts. While I also think it’s endearing that your teacher helped you so much on your art journey, I can understand why this took away from your passions, because it ruins the novelty of pursuing something new and open to failure. I can definitely relate to your situation as my dad similarly had gotten me into a music program for piano lessons that I started enjoying when I was around 6. My parents made me play songs that only they liked, and as expected, I started to lose interest after a while because the whole reason I pursued music was because I could independently control what melodies I wanted to play. It was only until recently I started playing piano again because they finally allowed me to play melodies of my choice, but then again, it was too late. Thank you Alex for this relatable post. I love that your passion for art still stands today and I hope it will continue to flourish! Your art is beautiful, and I hope I can see more of your art sometime!
ReplyDelete