Dedication to the degree

When Kyle Kaientó:ton Williams took a brief break from his studies at Concordia University to focus on music in 2016, he thought he’d be able to dip back in and finish what he started whenever he wished.

But when he decided he was ready to pick his fine arts degree in painting and drawing back up, he was hit with a new hurdle - the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I really didn’t want to do art classes online,” Williams said. “I wanted to be in a studio environment meeting people and working with other artists and teachers, so I realized I had to wait another couple of years.”

It would’ve been tempting to call it quits and abandon the dream of finishing his undergraduate studies, but Williams has never been a quitter. So, he kept on grinding and returned to school once in-person teaching resumed.

A few years later - and just over a decade since he first was accepted into school - he’s getting ready to walk across the stage at graduation, celebrating not only his dedication to finishing schooling, but also a wealth of skills and inspiration he’s gathered from his time at Concordia.

“I’m glad I saw that it’s not too late. If you don’t do it, and it gets to even five years later and you still haven’t done it, you start to realize that you could’ve made the time,” he said. “You’ve got to make the time and seize the opportunity.”

Williams started at Concordia already full of ideas, having previously completed a Fine Arts specialization at Dawson College. His main passion was painting and drawing, skills he continued honing even during his break from his degree program.

When he returned to school, he found that being around inspiring teachers and his peers encouraged him to grow as an artist.

“They really guide you, they really help you develop your style and your ideas. Sometimes you can disagree, and other times it’s good advice,” he said. “I find you really learn the most from watching other people in your class whose art you like, and you start to think ‘Wow, I would have never tried that.’”

He also benefited from expanding his horizons outside of the art world, taking a number of electives throughout his degree that he says made him think about the world more creatively - one such class was Philosophy of Biology, a topic he would’ve never learned about had he not found himself at Concordia.

“At university you get to take all kinds of weird classes, it’s not just that you’re in a straight-up drawing class,” he said.

In the art studio, he tried new and innovative techniques, branching out from his skills as a realism painter. He remembers one assignment, where he presented his ideas to his professor, confident in how comfortable he was with his proposed project.

“I thought ‘Perfect, I know exactly what to do,’ and then the professor said ‘Yes, but you’re already good at that. Do something else,’” Williams recalls. “I realized I had to start from scratch, find a different idea.”

He ultimately ended up creating a series of self-portraits, drawing with his left hand and practicing experimental techniques, like not looking at the paper while he drew - a step away from his traditional realistic work that ultimately ended up sparking an interest in new styles, something he hopes to explore even more in his future projects.

“You really realize how much you’re capable of doing,” Williams said.

It wasn’t always easy to finish the degree - Williams struggled with losing multiple family members after he returned to school - but he kept motivated, and said it felt especially empowering to finish his courses after overcoming multiple challenges.

“It can be hard to keep grades and appearances up when hard things happen in your life, but you still push through, because you’re determined,” Williams said. “I just knew I wanted to push. I wanted to finish.”

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