The Revealing Art Course

Mark Kleimann
9 min readNov 21, 2022

There was no shortage of red faces…

Photo by Pavel Danilyuk on Pexels

Back in the day, when I was impressionable and fresh out of Year 11 at College, I made a momentous decision.

Based on the very encouraging school report comments from my art teacher (“Mark has refined and developed his drawing skills” and following this up with a “well done, Mark”), I made the vocational decision to, rather than continue on to Year 12 and the Higher School Certificate (HSC) the next year, to study art instead, with a glowing career as a graphic designer at the end of this.

None of the other subjects I studied that year had a “well done, Mark” in their comments. They ranged from “had difficulties grasping biological concepts” to “never came to grips with the subject (mathematics)” to “has shown a high degree of confusion (chemistry)”. However, English did have “a satisfying exam result” and “a continual good effort!”. That explains why, even to this day, I love writing.

Stepping into the Unknown

Thus, after an in-depth report-related conversation with my parents, the plan went into action.

I stepped from the safe community of my Christian college into the wild, tribal world of a TAFE (Tertiary and Further Education) Art Vocational Orientation Program (VOP).

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Mark Kleimann

I am a writer from Australia, and share my life experiences to help others with whatever challenges they might be facing. Some of these can be quite hairy...