“It’s hard to impress me with chicken.”

I couldn’t believe what I just heard. An awkward laughter escaped my lips. I asked my teacher to repeat those exact words, not sure if I heard her right.

“Excuse me?” I asked, hoping she would take it back.

But no. She simply looked at me and spoke in that annoyingly dramatic tone of hers.
“You heard me. It’s hard to impress me with chicken.”

She then tapped the head of my artwork with her pencil, flattening the chicken’s head I had spent hours perfecting. I was too stunned to speak, as my clay chicken drooped its head under her careless touch. My heart dropped lower than my poor friend as I trembled at the foul rejection.

This wasn’t just any chicken. It was probably the best piece I have made so far in this clay studio. My chicken was beautiful. Though it may be smaller in scale than some of my classmates, it captured true detail and heart. I attached and slowly carved out every single feather with care. It took me weeks to capture the emotion in its eyes and the perfect curve of the smooth beak. Without soul, art is hollow. The chicken had its own soul.

I’ve always taken pride in my own clay art, as it was my joy as a kid. I consider myself a perfectionist, and I know that I generally take a long time to finish my projects. But, it’s not because I am lazy or slow. It is because I put more effort into it.

And there I stood in front of my art professor, showing her the beautiful art of clay I’ve poured my heart into for a whole week, only to receive a snarky comment that disregards my whole effort.

“I’d say I’d give it about a 90,” she spoke before I could even mutter a single word of defense. “You did meet the expectations for this class, but you didn’t go above and beyond.”

It wasn’t the grade that made my anger boil. It was the scratch in my shiny pride, violated as if it was nothing more than the clay under her pencil–just because my pronouns were not “fast” and “exceed expectations.”

What ever happened to valuing quality and process over the product? Although this may not satisfy the expectations of some old, biased high school teacher, it was definitely reaching its perfection.

“Next time, try making something bigger. It should be much easier for me to evaluate the effort and time you put into your work.”

She then turned away and scurried down the hall like some chicken on a mission in search for scattered grain.

I stormed back into the classroom and carefully placed my poor chicken on the table. Its head drooped, and it almost looked very…sad.

I then grabbed a huge chunk of clay and busily started carving. The creative spark immediately lit up my eyes as I swiftly cut through the thick clay, sculpting out its shape.

This was going to be a true masterpiece.

The next morning, I walked to school as usual.
I heard an angry screech as I turned the corner to my sculpting class.

I stepped into the studio to see the professor’s face, furious and red with anger.

In the middle of the room sat my new sculpture, a human head with beady rooster eyes and a massive, ridiculous beak in place of a nose and mouth. A wig lay on top of its head, the exact shade that matched the professor’s grayish blonde hair.

The paper beneath my chicken head read: The Bad Coq.

Because honestly, what a coq-head.