making art for fun by Teresa J. '26
what a crazy concept!
When I was applying to be a blogger in September, one of the first questions was about why I wanted to be a blogger in the first place. Amidst feeling a bit of déjà vu and lasting trauma from college application essays, I answered (in 250 words or less) that blogging would be an excuse01 i don't think this statement can be true when i rarely blog in the first place... oops. to continue pursuing art while attending an “Institute of Technology.”
Having been talking to other class of 2026 adMITs since December and attended the First Year Arts Program FPOP, I was well aware that there was much more to MIT culture than just being a tech school. I’d already met so many fellow frosh with interests in painting and dance and crochet and cooking, already been acquainted with the various music and arts clubs around campus before my first day of class even started.
Still, I’ve put myself in the box of being an “art kid” for so long, and I was afraid that going to a STEM school would irreparably change that part of me. I was afraid that I would lose touch with a part of myself that has always been a defining part of my life. I was afraid I really would have trouble continuing to pursue art while attending an “Institute of Technology.”
A semester and a half later, I can say I was more or less right. You’d expect an art major to be making a lot of art, but despite taking two design classes and having a UROP focused on animation, I didn’t actually create a lot of art during first semester. I didn’t have time to draw for fun other than a few sketches during the first week,02 i was disappointed to discover MIT doesn't really do the whole “syllabus week” thing, but in hindsight i should not have taken my lack of stress for granted. i had no idea what was in store for me. back when I was carefree and hadn’t yet been slammed with the reality of the impending workload.
Even the art I did make in my design classes isn’t really what I’d call art; it was more me struggling to learn how to use 3D modeling programs and messing around in the woodshop and making clumsy MechE adjacent crafts. Course 403 course 4 is architecture, and course 4b is art and design, which is what i'm planning on majoring in. studios at MIT are a far cry from the figure drawing and oil painting studios you might expect an “art major” to be taking. They’re much more iterative and rigid and, for lack of a better word, STEM-y. There are undertones of bio and chem and physics in many of the assignments I’ve received, and I’ve had to do way too many mathematical calculations when working on my projects for my liking. The closest I’ve gotten to drawing for any of my classes are scribbly Notability concept sketches.
But first semester eventually came to a close, and winter break began, and I suddenly, surprisingly, found that I was no longer in a period of artistic drought. For once, I had motivation, a restless energy to put pen to paper (or Apple pencil to Paperlike screen protector), and best of all, reasons to draw. After all, it was December, which meant gift-giving season :).
These gifts included Christmas gifts, birthday gifts04 although technically this was made in February not December, the winter months are such a continuous slog that i say it counts , and Secret Santa gifts for my DAAMIT05 Digital Art At MIT, a club focusing on, you guessed it, digital art and online art friends.
My aforementioned online art friends also held an event where we all made art based on each others’ song suggestions! Below are some doodles based on the song “On Melancholy Hill” by Gorillaz, alongside other personal projects and sketches made in the weeks since first semester.
I was also really looking forward to allocating time towards making art during IAP! Originally, I was banking on getting to take the glassblowing class over IAP, but as I walked into 10-25006 one of the more famous lecture halls on campus, situated in lobby 10 under The Dome! and was confronted with approximately a million people also hoping to lottery into the class, I kind of lost hope. And indeed, I did not get a spot in the class.
However, I did manage to sign up for some Student Art Association (SAA) classes: Painting Portraits (oil painting) and Mighty Mugs (ceramics). I’d previously done a little bit of oil painting (aka I made a mockery of the medium by basically treating it like watercolor because I didn’t know any better) and ceramics in high school (before my class went remote for Covid and I instead got to look at pictures of ceramics), but I was still excited to learn more.
Over the course of four weeks, I got to spend allocated time turning my brain off and just letting my hands do their thing.
Conveniently, just as IAP ended, a pipe burst (or something like that) in the Student Center, effectively holding my painting and mug hostage in the fourth floor SAA rooms. 07 this was originally my excuse for waiting to write this blog, but the stud has been back in commission for at least a couple weeks now, so... The closure of the Stud was a pretty big issue for the flow of MIT’s ecosystem as it meant that several study spaces, eating options, and, most importantly, the campus boba store were all closed. But eventually, (some of) the doors to the Stud reopened, and I was able to retrieve my precious creations.
I still don’t make as much art as I wish I could, but this semester has been a lot better than the last. It’s nice to know that the balance between being an artist and a student at an “Institute of Technology” is a delicate one, not an impossible one. I’m still holding on to that burst of motivation to create, and I’m excited to see where that takes me.
- i don't think this statement can be true when i rarely blog in the first place... oops. back to text ↑
- i was disappointed to discover MIT doesn't really do the whole “syllabus week” thing, but in hindsight i should not have taken my lack of stress for granted. i had no idea what was in store for me. back to text ↑
- course 4 is architecture, and course 4b is art and design, which is what i'm planning on majoring in. back to text ↑
- although technically this was made in February not December, the winter months are such a continuous slog that i say it counts back to text ↑
- Digital Art At MIT, a club focusing on, you guessed it, digital art back to text ↑
- one of the more famous lecture halls on campus, situated in lobby 10 under The Dome! back to text ↑
- this was originally my excuse for waiting to write this blog, but the stud has been back in commission for at least a couple weeks now, so... back to text ↑