Being An Artist by Alexis Joseph

For most of my life, art has been a passion of mine and also a stress reliever. I taught myself how to draw and paint when I was younger and ever since, it has been a major part of my life. Tattoos and alternate forms of art have also grown to be a new passion of mine. Since I started kindergarten, art class has been my favorite class and now that I am at Duke that has not changed. Being creative is important and I find my days to be better when I am being creative and practicing art. Being a student athlete, most of my days are stressful and long. I have found art to be my release, my happy place. I look forward to art homework and I look forward to my two-and-a-half-hour art class every Monday.

A few weeks ago, our class visited the Nasher Museum and I was asked if I was a “practicing” artist. My initial reaction was of course I am a practicing artist. However, once I really thought about it, my answer began to change. Duke is an amazing university that offers thousands of opportunities; however, those opportunities feel slim when it comes to art.

I have complete freedom for what classes I can chose which makes me very happy, however I find myself frustrated when book bagging. Not because I have to take an 8am class or because I have to struggle to find a language class, but because I plan to major in Visual Art but my schedule has no art classes. From my experience thus far, Duke offers few fine arts classes. The classes that are offered are during my practice schedule. So; being an artist at Duke is definitely frustrating for me. However, being an artist at Duke has taught me to be creative and take my education in my own hands. It has also introduced me to new forms of art and unintentionally made me more open to learning new forms.

I never thought about graphic art or a music theory class but after searching for classes here at Duke, I am now starting to become more interested in other mediums. Which I believe in the end will help develop my artist skills and ideas.