 I went to Ringling School of Art and Design as an art major and studied painting. I had the most wonderful and the most critical mentor, Leslie Lerner. At that final critique of my junior year, it was my turn and I was nervous. I stood up and explained my project and showed these large paintings that I felt like I worked really hard on and he tore them apart to the point that I did everything I could but cry in class. After class, because he knew I was upset, he took me aside and it made it worse. He said, Carrie, you are not a painter, you are a sculptor. He was implying that I just wasn't working to my potential. At the end of my junior year, he gave me a C in painting. I wanted to go to graduate school, so a C in painting was not gonna get me very far. I cried and I cried for a long time. That summer, I took an artist residency where I was the youngest of all of the residents. I think I was 22 at the time and the average resident was between 40 and 60. I learned a lot from all of the others at the residency and learned how to oil paint, which gave me this newfound confidence. A week before classes started my senior year, the rumor was that Leslie only gave one A to a painting senior and I wanted that A to be mine. I called him up and I went to his studio. He was a little surprised that I actually showed up and I said, Leslie, I said, you keep your eye on me. I just took this painting residency, this retreat and I learned how to paint with oils and I realized I wasn't working to my potential, but I'm a painter, not a sculptor, so just keep your eye out because I'm gonna get that A and I worked harder than I've ever worked in my whole life, which was really to my full potential. I managed to get that A and graduate Ringling and go on to graduate school, but it really wasn't about the grade and in the end it wasn't about me impressing my mentor, but it was about learning to work to my full potential because a lot of times we feel like we're working so hard and we're doing something and we don't realize that we have the capacity to do more and to keep reinventing ourselves in the way that feels right.