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Longing to feel normal

   I am a minority.
   OK, so you may be looking at my picture now and questioning what I mean. I'm not black, or Hispanic, or Asian, or any other typical minority figure.
   I am a minority in the sense that I am an artist - a graphic artist in a world full of "non-artists."
   Oh well, you may be thinking, "So what. What's the big deal?" Well, I'm here to tell you that it is a big deal.
   I guess I just never realized how rare and different artists are until I got out of art school a year and a half ago. You see, when you are around people like yourself who have similar interests, you begin to feel "normal." You feel very comfortable because you fit right in. I felt very normal in art school.
   Many of my friends there were graphic artists like myself. When we went out together, we would admire neat-looking posters and brochures that we saw on the streets; CD and tape covers in the record stores; 3-D movie posters at theaters; unique billboards and road signs; logos on business cards or buildings; and anything else that caught our eyes.
   If we stayed in, we would talk endlessly about typefaces, different types of paper, computer programs, Syquest drives, CD-ROMs leading, kerning, tracking, composition, PMS colors - terms that we thought were perfectly normal to anyone. (Anyone who was a graphic artist, that is.)
   So you can imagine the culture shock I had upon leaving art school and all of my friends to come work for a newspaper in West Virginia.
   I am one of the few graphic artists at the newspaper and I'm surrounded daily by a sea of journalists. Now, I'm the strange one, the outsider. And I no longer feel normal amongst my peers.
   You see, artists need to look at things and admire them. Words come second. When I pick up a book or brochure, the first thing I do is admire the cover. I look at the design - the colors, the typestyles on the front, the photos and the drawings. Then when I've done that, I'll start flipping through the pages to see if there is anything neat to look at inside. When all that is done, then I'll let my eyes wander back to the beginning of the book to start reading.
   I've realized over the past year that most other people do not look at things that way. They don't care about the pictures, they go right for the words.
   I recently had a friend from art school come visit me in Huntington. I was very excited when I saw him simply because I know that he is someone who truly knows where I am coming from and thinks like me.
   When he was here, I was able to open myself up again and express myself as an artist - something that I hadn't done over the past year and a half. It was so refreshing! And for two days I felt normal once again.
   Don't get me wrong, I appreciate all of the friends that I have make in Huntington. I realize there are benefits to being around people with different interests and professions - you learn to expand your horizons (something I think everybody should do). But at the same time, people need people who they can relate to and I miss that terribly.
   I like many other minorities, just want to fit in and I'm longing for the days when I will feel normal once again.

The Herald-Dispatch, 1994

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