Prompt:Margaret’s diagnosis prompts her to take certain personal risks and to make herself vulnerable in ways that she hasn’t for many years. Describe a time in your own life when you decided to take a personal risk. What happened? Be as specific and detailed as possible in describing your experience.
Definately the bigest risk I have taken was deciding to become an artist. I know that there are a lot of people here in the same boat.
I have always had a passion for art, but it wasn't until winter of my junior year that I seriously considered making the transition from "someone who does art" to "artist." It was terrifying. I started taking art classes my sophomore year, and a little bit into my junior year my art teacher told me she thought I should consider applying to some art schools. At first I thought that maybe that was something she said to all her students who did more that goof off, but she kept encouraging me. I was so unsure. I knew that I would love to spend the rest of my life making art, but I couldn't shake the though that it would probably mean living with my parents untill I was thirty or never being able to afford more than some decrepid one-room loft. No one in my family was an artist, and the whole idea was so alien. So I did the only logical thing: I didn't eat for a week. More specificly, I fasted. For a week I prayed and thought about my future, and by the end of the week I knew that if I never took the risk, I would regret it for the rest of my life.
So I spent the next year building up my portfolio, and when January came around I hualed what I had to Cornish for National Portfolio Day (an event that Cornish hosts every year where representatives from art schools across the country come to review porfolios for admission). I had two finished pieces, a mess of figure drawings, and four or five unfinished paintings. I figured I'd show my stuff to the Cornish rep and see what they thought, then come back in a couple months for my official portfolio review. I laid everything out for the rep and explained the concepts behind my work and the direction the unfinished pieces were headed. When I finished I was prepared to listen to some critisism and advice, but I wasn't prepared for what happened.
"This is the calibure of work we're looking for." The rep told me. Bob, I think his name was. "I want to really encourage you to fill out an application and send it into the school." Well I wasn't exactly grasping what he was telling me, so I said something about completeing my portfolio and coming back for my official portfolio review, and he laughed. I was so confused. He had to explain to me at least two more times that he had just conducted the review, even though I only had about half the required elements, and I had been accepted. I don't know how long I stared at him with the classical "dear in the headlights" look before it really hit me and I was overcome with a foolish grin and a small fit of relieved giggles.
I took the first part of the risk, and here I am, at Cornish, now I'm lainching myself into the real risk, which will be graduating and trying to avoid being a starving artist!
Her body hung at the top of the hill. It had only been that morning that she was nailed and bound to the planks. He couldn't have gone, it would be too painful for them both. And he shouldn't have gone, he could not risk it. Even now, as he approaced the site of her final moments, he was frightened that someone might be following him, watching him, wondering what he was doing there and why he might know this blasphemous girl.
