Parsons The New School for Design

     My internship is a bust and I'm now a whore for knitwear job/educational opportunities. Maybe this is far off... I need to develop a design portfolio before I can even apply, but with a lot of work I could be someplace like this in a year. Their video (with Donna Karan talking) actually makes me want to go back to school for this.

     There are some questions to ask: Do I want to be forced go beyond knitwear? Would I be able to specialize in knitwear at that school? Can I handle living in NYC for two years? For many fashion students I'm sure that's part of the dream... maybe I should keep trying to find opportunities like this on the west coast. I know SF has the art institute... do they have a design school? The program at Parsons seems way awesome... the description of their studios says their facilities include a "specialist knitwear studio." Just seems way too awesome to be real, or for my perception to not be skewed towards making everything having to do with knitwear and yarn sound more fun than it is in real life. 

     What I should do is try to talk to people who have graduated or are in programs like this. I've been scouring ravelry for possible mentors, which is actually how I found this school. I didn't have any ravelry friends before, like I was almost afraid to reach out to other knitters... I still hesitate sometimes but I'm getting better at just randomly adding friends. It's not like facebook, I don't have to have actually met them. These are people I want to meet, with whom my only way to connect is ravelry, so I will friend them. Favorite their designer pages and friend their profiles. Just because one person is too afraid of competition and doesn't want to welcome me, doesn't mean others won't be friendly and willing to teach. 

     I'm glad I was able to figure out that that internship was not for me without having to move there and then want to quit. I could tell already that I would want to quit. Sorry, I signed up for some experience; I am looking for more structure. It's not wrong to be so severely disappointed by lack of structure, right? I don't want to hang out in a beanbag chair and try to appear busy, or continuously be bugging you to give me something to do while YOU sit in your beanbag chair trying to appear busy. I want to DESIGN SWEATERS. Dammit. I would be an asset to your company because I want to design sweaters that will make people want to buy huge dye-lots of your ridiculously priced yarn. DAMMIT. 

     Frustration aside, I am so glad I didn't actually have to move to Fresno to figure out that I'm better off on my own. Lack of respect is a perfectly good reason not to work with someone. If my new boss won't get up off her ass when I introduce her to my mother... then I say, peace out. TNNA and PiPN may or may not still be helpful to me, I may or may not get to intern for Helen Hamann... We'll see. I'm willing to bet she's got a bank of knowledge I reaaalllly want to borrow from and I am totally eager to pay the interest. No need to be threatened by little me. 

     At least I feel like all the paths are open in front of me... I may end up jumping through windows instead of calmly walking through doors to get to the career I want, but for now I get to develop the skills that will hopefully get me the dream job. But for now... Designdesigndesign!