School of Sammy Al-Asmar: Ode to Rocky Fork Road

Written by Sammy Al-Asmar

These graphics hold the juxtaposition of my chase for selfgratification, yet also a symbol of something I try to run away from: competition in the art community. Through all of these graphics, I reached absolute exhaustion for I attempted to “out-design” other designers and people I look up to. Each one of these pieces appears extremely different from what I intended to originally complete. In this I can say that I accelerated my artistic vision by doing this, but I also did not give myself room to love, only room to critique to my utmost ability.

Every detail within these graphics were compared and calculated to my absolute best ability with each new graphic I made. This has only given wider range of things not to do, not what to do or where to go. I have been making these graphic pieces for about 6 months now, and I do not have anything to hold onto. I can only say that I am attracted to vulgarity over anything, but when approaching these graphics, it’s never what I should aim for, but what not to aim for. This is an absolute shot into an abyss of design with no clear end.

Within every single graphic I made, my main feeling was exhaustion clouded by a slight feeling of self-gratification. With no aim, there is no end, and with no end, comes a sense of always longing for something wrong. As I newly entered a didactic approach to art, I saw this as positive instead of negative.

I started to realize that most things that I was doing was trying to get ahead of other designers, and I started to become very jaded with not my work, but myself as a person. Was my work just a byproduct of someone else’s? Am I just a byproduct of someone else? Was I even unique enough? Will people like my art? Will people like me? All these conflicts, in self-identity stem from graphic design.

But I do like graphic design, and I know the answer to all of my problems. I just had to figure out how to be me, the absolute version of myself that I can possibly be in every situation from now on in life. At this point, it was an all-out battle to accept me, my experiences, and my ability to communicate how I see the world, no matter how disgusting. Growing up in shitty parts of Tennessee and the Middle East in Jordan and Palestine, vulgarity mixed with a manic angst is the root of it all for me.

This is my art school. To be the absolute version of myself and not compete with anyone. No one wants to see a rehashed Basquiat or Bacon. Everyone has their own manifesto and they come into it naturally when the time is right and edit it as time moves on. Things like art cannot be forced or enforced. It only took me a year of art school where I got great grades but could not translate any work I had done into anything meaningful. You just have to go through this learning and searching phase yourself. Learn to be yourself, not who you would like to be.