LOR

I have written a little over 50 letters of recommendation so far. I often request younger people to keep me as their last option; I encourage them to find people more established and senior in the art field, experts whose names will add that prestigious weight to paper. Some successfully find a prominent name for their purpose; others who, for one reason or another, fail to do so, come back. I prefer to only mention about their work which I have personally encountered, but even so, I struggle to keep the letters brief. And this is because I often can't resist writing about the beauty of promise that I find in the work of young artists. I find it difficult to contain my excitement at the surprising revelations nestled in a student's work; I can't stop myself from imagining the glorious possible futures of their creation which exists, at the moment, in the form of an unglamourous student exercise in a small classroom.

The LORs that I begin to write threaten to transform into a personal letter to them, the opening pages of a private dialogue -- from tutor, with love -- because their artistic explorations gave me something precious, moved me in profound ways. I write for them, but really, I am writing to them, thanking them for their creations, for sharing the depths of their existence (abyss and all) with me.

But then, I stop myself short from doing so. Because I know that LORs will eventually land up in a heap of hundreds of them on some administrator's desk or in the hands of a tired panelist looking at dozens during an admission process. It would be a pity for private correspondence to get lost among letters masquerading as "positive letters, that confirm that you believe the person is a strong candidate for a course/university/academy with no reservations whatsoever."

Of course, they are.