Well, I had a weekend of sloth and food and serious pondering. On Thursday, when I got the news, I was pretty much shocked and shattered. A good friend kept me company all afternoon. We hung out in the park, swinging and walking and sitting on benches, and I basically talked and talked and cried and just worked out all my thoughts. She was so awesome and just had the best advice and was really helping me see it from a good perspective.

Then yesterday and today were my last two days of classes, and I am pretty much fine with everything now. Plus I have a plan. Here is what I have come up with:

– In my meeting, the department head told me that I was “a hard worker and smart,” but that I just “came to grad school too early.” Meaning, I basically had had no drawing/color theory classes in my undergrad, so I was just struggling with really basic elements of drawing and painting now.

– He said that another girl failed her review last year who had had a similarly scattered background, and she decided to just take the undergrad courses she’d never taken the first time, and earn a BFA instead of an MFA. He suggested this for me.

– My immediate reaction to this was “Um, I don’t think so.”

– However, since then I have been reconsidering. The thing is, within my program, it’s totally acknowledged that the undergrad painting program is really rigorous and that the students end up being really good painters, whereas the majority of us upstairs (colloquial term for the grad students), who did not go to this school for undergrad, are strong on concept and weak on actual painting skills.

– Now, since I will be doing all drawing and design for the next few quarters and then painting, I would actually be benefitting from the “stronger” part of the painting program (the undergrad part).

– So I will end up with stronger actual painting skills than I would have if I’d passed this review and ended up just choking my way through the MFA program with my self-taught ways.

– At that point, when I finish the BFA (which will take no longer that I’d been planning to devote to getting the MFA), I can take my mad formal skillz and, if I still want to attend grad school, go to a more conceptual, cutting-edge program somewhere else. Somewhere where I will be appreciated for my “formally economical” work! (Screw you, professor who used that term as a pejorative. I think it rocks.)

– Finally, as far as getting booted from grad school (and damn, that sounds so hardcore, it’s like I have some kind of street cred), I have looked at the work on the walls of our graduate area. There is a definite range of ability and technique going on upstairs; it’s not all outstanding. And I honestly will never buy their argument that my work was so far below some others’ work that I shouldn’t have continued on in the program. I will believe that forever. However, at this point it’s like an “ends justifying the means” thing. No, I don’t think I deserved to get cut. But now I’ll be in the program that is more suited to my needs and abilities, so it ends up okay.

– I did have to clean out my studio, though. That was hard. Nine months’ worth of paintings, sketches, and supplies create quite a mess.

Thanks to all you who commented with support for me and anger for the situation. I am really totally fine now. Onward and upward! Have a great afternoon, pals.