In conversation with @fleurdechair the other night, I was recounting how I was virtually blacklisted from fine arts classes in undergrad because of a hateful, gatekeeping professor (short story thread):

This person, who was supposed to educate and safeguard my creative young mind, told me I should go be a writer, and stop doing art. She had been assigned to me as a mentor by the school: I had never had her as a professor. I just didn't make the 'kind' of art she liked.

I got unofficially blacklisted from the fine arts department because I told her – rightfully – she could shove it, that I'd been making art my whole life and wasn't going to stop, and that one day I'd be a professor and a successful artist, and I wouldn't even remember her name.

Now, probably 15 years after that conversation, I teach full time as an art professor, and I have a strong, growing career as an independent filmmaker. It's great.

And you know what? This week, when I remembered this story, I realized...I have, indeed, forgotten her name.

The greatest power, internally, is knowing yourself. It allows you to stand firm against whatever bitterness, meanness, pettiness will try to tear your dreams apart.

And if you're where I was, and someone is trying to kick you down? Don't let the bastards stop you.