Accepted & Preparing

Today I am preparing.  Perseverance worked and two months after I was rejected at UW-Madison I found out that I had been accepted after a spot in the painting and drawing program opened up.  I will start the Masters of Fine Arts program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in a few weeks.  I truly feel that determination and hard work is attributed to this accomplishment.  Talent alone is not the only predictor of success.  Those of you who have read Malcolm Gladwell's novel "Outliers: The Story of Success" know that sweat equity has as much of an impact on outcomes.

Today I am also preparing for a solo art show of the work I created in one year.  This is the body of work I created after I decided to apply for graduate school in painting and not pursue training and a career in mortuary science-to become a funeral director.  I am going to live my life as the artist that I am.  I am, however; going to continue my research on the role and art of funeral directing.  The most fascinating career in my perspective.  In the words of Thomas Lynch, Undertaker, writer, and poet, "How we come to be the ones we are seems a useful study and a lifelong query.  Knowing how we got to where we are provides some clues to the perpetual wonder over what it is we are doing here-a question that comes to most of us on a regular basis" (The Good Funeral: Death, Grief, and the Community of Care, T. G. Long & T. Lynch, 2013, Westminster John Knox Press; Louisville, Kentucky).

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