The most valuable truth I learned in art school is that you will only ever be as good or as mediocre as your own efforts. Once I started school, it didn’t take me long to learn exactly the type of work I needed to create to get a good grade in my studio classes. All I had to do was make work that would stick to the rubric we were given in every class and satisfy the taste of my instructors. I already knew how to create work that they would consider “great”. I realized then that I had nothing left to learn from doing the same kind of work over and over...