3. "Attend Night School - Take Classes Men Like."
On limbless sculptures and makeup at the library.
Hey! If you’re new and wondering “what the heck is this,” I suggest you check out this intro post. Or you can just dive in below and figure it out. I believe in you!
As I searched for courses where a single gal may meet an eligible bachelor, I had some pause about exclusively looking for a class based on what a man would like. Who am I kidding, I had a LOT of pause. Choosing a class based on what a man would like? While I’m at it, why don’t I make sure my dowry is worthy and my ankles are covered. It felt antiquated and odd.
It was then I remembered Jenna from my freshman dorm at the University of Michigan. Early in our first semester, Jenna shared with the ladies of Bursley Hall two lessons passed down by her mother: always wear makeup to the library, because you may just meet your partner there; and attend finance classes (wearing makeup, of course!), because you could also meet your partner there.
My 18-year-old ass balked at the notion. I planned on showing up to lectures looking like I’d rolled out of bed and thrown on a sweatshirt because that’s what college was all about. School was for studying, not seducing! What lunacy! And! Finance was boring! Jenna was wasting her time on makeup and mock classes, I thought. Joke’s on her. She’ll regret the rouge.
Midway through the semester she ran into a guy from her finance class at the library. They got married last June.
Nearly ten years later, I still don’t think a full beat is necessary for hitting the books, but I do understand wanting to feel your best when in public. For me, it’s a cute shirt and brushed hair. For Jenna, it was enough makeup to stock a Sephora. Finance will never not make my brain hurt, and I’ve dated enough Patagonia-clad banker bros to know it’s unlikely there’ll be a love connection. But I’m not Jenna. She genuinely loved business school; in fact, T-charts turned her on! After graduation she took a consulting job with Deloitte. Jenna had been looking for love in places that she loved and it paid off (literally – do you know how much consultants make?! Yay Jenna).
So before we go further, a quick revision:
#3: Attend Night School – Take Courses
MenEmily Like(s)
On a crisp October Wednesday evening, I cautiously arrived at the New York Studio School. Located in the home of the original Whitney Museum, the school offers MFA degrees and also hosts an Evening Lecture Series. Free and open to all, the lectures are billed as an opportunity to engage with speakers and content on a variety of subjects related to the arts community.
Of course, I didn’t know any of this when I arrived at 8 W. 8th Street. I just knew I was attending something called “Looking Again: Matisse’s Serf.” Not a purveyor of art history, I was skeptical but excited. I anticipated a night of pretentious presentations amid a sparse audience. I love this stuff, but I’m weird. How many other people choose to go to a lecture about ‘Matisse’s Serf’ on a random Wednesday?
As I climbed the impressive marble stairs and gaped at the art covering the walls, I got my answer.
The lobby was buzzing with a delightful mix of Fran Leibowitz-esque 70-year-olds and artists who belonged in a French New Wave film (or at least, who believe they belong in a French New Wave film). Elegant men with paint splattered pants milled around women with eyes that cut into your soul. It seemed like everyone had either a sketch pad or a paint brush tucked snugly in their back pocket. The scene was so predictable and picturesque it bordered on satire.
The lecture room itself was a large studio with vaulted ceilings, dirty skylights, and ample art supplies littered throughout. At the front, a panel of experts — a two-time Pulitzer finalist, a museum curator, and two esteemed sculptors — putzed and prepared to discuss Matisse for their pupils.
I wandered around like a baby lost at the mall, timidly testing out chairs, calculating which spot would yield the best reward. As folks flagged each other down and the open seats dwindled, it dawned on me that most people knew each other. Ah, shit. For me this was a foray into a fresh perspective, but for everyone else, this was just class, and I was a strange intruder.
Nonetheless I was committed to attending, so I impulsively grabbed the next seat I saw: the last chair in an open middle row. I settled in, hopeful that I’d soon be joined by one of the enigmatic MFAs who look like they’d party with Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe. But no such luck as the clock ticked by and I remained alone. Waiting awkwardly in that corner, I felt tossed back to middle school, picking food out of my braces and wishing one of the cool kids would notice me.
“Is anyone sitting there?”
I was joined by Ally, a sculptor new to the MFA program. She was kind, comforting, and entrancing. We struck up a conversation as I peppered in questions about what we were doing here (learning), how often this happens (every week), and what her knowledge of Matisse was (a lot, duh). As politely as she could, she asked how I – a random with no knowledge of art or her school – ended up at the lecture. I spilled the beans. “Well, I’ve got this list…”
Before we could discuss further, the lecture began. The subject was the mystery of the “Serf,” a 1903 bronze bust crafted by the iconic visual artist Henri Matisse. Records and photographs show Matisse with a complete sculpture, arms and all. Yet the final product (currently at the Art Institute of Chicago) exists with limbs missing. No one knows exactly what happened, but many have theories.
As the four scholars discussed their own hypotheses, I couldn’t help but appreciate the irony of the situation. Though the purpose of this project is not just to meet a man, as I found myself sitting and staring at the bulging marble penis of a naked Adonis for over an hour, I had to imagine the original writers of the list would be proud. Or horrified. It was the 1950s, after all.
The big question was, “When and why were the arms on the Serf removed?” One scholar purported that perhaps Matisse finished his project, saw the final product, and knew something was missing. It wasn’t right. Another speaker thought the piece fell in transit and limbs were lost in the wreckage. A third thought an armless figure was always the plan. Whether by mistake, accident, or intention, Matisse destroyed his darling and created a masterpiece from the mess.
This sentiment hit close to home as I realized that in many ways, I have spent the better part of the last year with my arms cut off.
To properly tell this story we need to do a bit of time-traveling, back to when my (metaphorical) appendages were intact and before this list was even a blip of an idea. We need to go back to age 22.
After college, Jenna from Bursley Hall followed her heart to Chicago, and I went to Los Angeles in pursuit of a love of my own: writing. Though dating, sex, and partnership were certainly on my mind, career took precedence. My days were spent working minimum wage assistant jobs and hiking at dawn. My nights were consumed by writers' groups with hopeful scribes and acting classes in the Valley and improv in West Hollywood, where any of us could (and some actually would) be the next crop of Saturday Night Live greats. Even if I was in the place I loved, around people who shared my passion, finding my person was low on the list. I’d worry about that when I finally got where I was trying to go, I figured.
So instead of dating, I spent my time doing a worse version of sitting with a stranger at a bar: networking.
Most meetings go in-and-out the window, a blip on a calendar you soon forget. But occasionally, you get a nugget of advice that sticks, like the words spoken to me by a wise old 30-something whom I’d met for coffee to “pick her brain.” She warned me to prepare for what’s ahead: the hangovers get worse, the heartbreaks get harder, and at some point, you will feel the urge to apply to – and possibly even attend – grad school.
At 22, I scoffed. Please. My liver is invincible, my heart is made of stone, and I will never want more school. I don’t need it; I already have the job a million girls would kill for (picking up lunch for television writers and collating scripts).
At 24, I was confident and condescending, proud that I had seemingly beat the system. And then the system beat me right back.
At 26, I was defeated and unemployed. It was this time last year when I was let go from a job I didn’t even want, dumped by a boy I wasn’t even dating, and rejected en masse as a piece of writing I’d poured my heart into floated dead in the water. Things spiraled quickly and painfully as all I could think was – how could I have gone so wrong?
One moment I was whole, complete, life was on the right track and then suddenly— SMASH! My sculpture was on the floor and everything was ruined. For months, I lived with the sense that all was lost and things would never get better.
That’s when I understood grad school. After college, we grow up and life gets big and weird and tough and dreams change as we learn things about ourselves we didn’t expect to know. The clear path becomes cloudy and it’s sometimes necessary to seek out a new direction.
Or you want to become a doctor / lawyer / business person / teacher / architect / writer / librarian / environmental planner / any job where college after college is required and literally have to enroll.
At 27, I’m no longer defeated or unemployed or confident or condescending. My liver is not invincible, my heart is made of mush, and I do want more school. Not because I seek a new career (though I’d be remiss to not admit buying an LSAT book) but because I crave a setting where learning is welcome and growth is safe.
This is really why the list project started. Like Matisse’s Serf, I was shattered. Crucial parts of my identity disappeared and I was flailing as I struggled to maneuver a new version of existence. But that’s the beauty of the breakage, or at least, that’s what I took away from the lecture. Chaos creates change. You might fall apart, but you will rebuild and be better for it.
Later that night, I followed Ally to the “Clay Room,” where I’d been invited for a glass of wine. Lining the walls were busts-in-progress, molded heads waiting to be shaped and finished by their makers.
You know that scene in Annie where the small-town girl gets off the bus at Port Authority, and sings through Times Square with bright eyes, in awe of it all? That’s how it felt to be in the Clay Room. I’m not saying it was the coolest event or the most mind-boggling conversation or the best wine. It was just… a place I never expected to be, with a group of people I never thought I’d share space with. It felt like a gift.
It also felt like jumping into a lake naked in the middle of the night. It was TERRIFYING. I worried everyone knew I was an imposter and wanted me gone so they could properly discuss whether or not Matisse was copying Rodin with sculpture. I like I had nothing of value to say. In fact, as Ally and I were joined by her classmate Elise, I felt the need to make myself invisible. I prepared to flee.
But then something in me shifted and I found myself thinking… no! Screw that. I had just as much a place as everyone else. I deserved to be here. So I took a deep breath and stepped back into the conversation.
And you know what? The world didn’t end. They welcomed me as a peer and we had a thought provoking conversion about art and writing. Elise even encouraged me to come back the next week.
Later that night, I walked down Astor Place towards the subway, smiling like an idiot. I felt like I’d just been kissed. I had butterflies. I couldn’t believe it: how could such an insignificant evening be so meaningful? Of course, because it wasn’t insignificant at all. It was anything but.
This last year, I became small and quiet and lost. And as I let the belief that I don’t belong win and took myself out of the conversation, I watched the woman I had been so proud of fade away.
In the Clay Room I felt a glimmer of her come back. For a moment, I felt 22 again.
SOME OTHER CLASSES I TOOK
That is the marquee story, but of course I didn’t just go to one night class. These deserve essays of their own but I don’t have time to write all that and am simply including the highlights:
An intermediate Salsa class halfway through their semester. The course was surprisingly full of eligible young people, and several very passionate old men. I’m proud to say I’m now in a 15-person salsa group chat and have since been invited to a “salsa social.” But it’s Industry City which is like five trains away, so… we’ll have to see how desperately I want to dance.
A lecture at NYU Steinhardt called “Feast and Famine.” It was rained out due to catastrophic flooding. Of course it was. OF COURSE.
Several attempts to take a knifesmithing class with the help of my new friend Jeff, the owner of Craftsman Ave, a handicraft school in Brooklyn. I’d initially called to take “Make Your Own Custom Side Table,” but according to Jeff, that was a terrible idea, as “people make furniture when they’re in love.” We landed on “Make Your Own Custom Kitchen Knife,” but the rosters lacked fellow singles, so my taking the course has been put on ice. If anyone reading this wants to make a knife in Gowanus… you know where to find me.
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As a lover of learning who can't afford (nor has the time for) an MFA, I should take more night classes! Especially ones with decapitated sculpture heads in bins.