Yesterday was my graduation — a long, hot morning where I was expecting to be much later in the lineup of names to be called. As it turns out, I was the first student. Not of the art school, but of the entire graduation. Holy cow. Granted, no graduation ceremony should ever be free of mistakes — and there were plenty for this one. When I went up to get my diploma book and shake the hand of the Chancellor, the microphone for the person reading names was turned off, so to everyone except those on stage, my name was inaudible. They wound up saying my name again before I left the stage, but it was quite comical and a perfect representation of how graduation ceremonies typically go - imperfect.

This week is graduation week for my university. It still hasn’t hit me yet. One of my best friends just graduated his masters program and seeing him so happy and thrilled to be done was heartwarming. I can’t lie and say that I don’t feel a little bit of “supportive jealousy” for him because he has a whole cohort and I’m the only photo MFA in my program. It’s been interesting telling folks that are either in MFA programs, teach at universities or are working artists that I’m the only photo MFA in my program and I’m the first in a few years. Even though that sounds lonely or isolating, it’s been liberating and incredible be in since I’m the only focus of my committee for grad students (as they still have undergraduate classes to focus on, too), and I get to mingle with the other media MFAs.

It’s my university’s finals week, and most art students know that finals week isn’t really finals week. This is often the week of tying off loose ends in the studio, perhaps a critique, and cleaning a lot. For me, this is my last-ever finals week as a student (to my knowledge). I don’t have a darn thing going on aside from a final I just submitted before writing this and waiting on my thesis report format review to be completed. It’s pretty mellow over here in MFA land.

It’s been a long time coming, huh. I moved out to Massachusetts in August 2021 to pursue my MFA in photography, not knowing one lick about what I would end up making. Of course, form the beginning I wanted to have some kind of photo book by the end of it. I knew i would likely end up doing mostly landscape work, keeping in the tradition I have been developing for myself since 2019. I struggled at first, experimenting with black and white, layered photographs, projected video over prints, darkroom work, and ultimately, throwing it all out the window to start almost form scratch — except still using the many hundreds of photographs I’ve made over the two academic years here.