Florence Academy of Art - Should I go?

[Kimber Scott]

Thank you all very much for your advice! When I consider the question of adventure, or study, I come up with the answer study, with adventure being the frosting.

Mischa - the information you provided is exactly what I was looking for - physical, mental, emotional and economical. Thank you. It gives me a very good picture to look at. I have much to think about.

Also, Mischa, I see you live in Germany. I lived two years in Bad Krueznach. I was in the Army. Actually, I had an apartment in Feilbingert, near Bad Munster. It was so beautiful and clean. I miss the church bells and the slower lifestyle. I left in 1989. I never wanted to leave there. So, maybe my wanting to go to Flornece is just an excuse to return to Europe. Although, I can guess Florence is not so slow, or quiet. I assume. I don't know.

If I were younger and singler, I'm sure I would have thrown caution to the wind already and gone. Now, I'm thinking, as you all have suggested, to scale back my ambitions and proceed with a little more calculation. Selling our house, in this market, probably isn't the smartest thing to do. We'd have a hard time buying even half as much house when we returned. Ah, such grand ambitions seem always thwarted by reality.

So, I'm still thinking about where to go from here. In the meantime, I guess I'll go paint. Thank you, again.

[Debra Norton]

Kimber, I'm a third year student at The Atelier in Minneapolis. We moved here from Washington state. I went through a situation similar to yours. My husband took early retirement to enable me to go to school, (we're empty nesters). To retire we had to sell our house
(fortunately we had a good deal of equity since we built it ourselves). We used part of the money for school and moving expenses and the rest we invested in property which we plan to subdivide and sell, keeping one lot for ourselves to build on when we move back home in a little over a year from now. This works out well for both of us, he wanted to retire (really to change careers) and I wanted to go to school. Selling the house enabled us to do that, but also to reinvest so we're not having to start over financially in middle age. As it stands now, we have his pension, plus he works. We ended up buying a fixer upper here, which we'll sell when we leave to help us get started on the house back home. Maybe some of these ideas would work for you too?

About school, I agree with what the others said, check out the Art Renewal Center. That's where I found my school. We took a summer vacation trip to visist a couple schools and then made the choice. I think I made an excellent choice, I love what I'm learning here. You might try taking workshops at different schools too. We offer workshops three times a year, two weeks in the summer and a week each in the spring and fall.

If you have any questions I'd be glad to answer what I'm able.
Debra