Senior Sem, Crit (part 2)

So after being totally discouraged by the first part of the blitz crit I met with my second artist. She clearly knew I was frustrated and was trying pretty hard to help me out. Her advice was to figure out what it was I really liked about what I was doing or what I wanted to be doing and really hone in on that. She suggested making a list of what I want my art to be about/how I want it to come across. If it's a mood, she suggested picking 10 adjectives (and then narrowing it down to 5) describing the mood that I wanted the art to convey. She also mentioned that when she needs to be making art but can't figure out what to do she'll make art about what she wants to be doing right then. For instance if she wanted to be watching a soap opera she'd make a painting about watching a soap opera. All interesting thoughts...

She was definitely way more helpful than crit part 1, so I left still confused about my plan, but a little less frustrated.

Again, to be continued...

Senior Sem, Crit (part 1)

I seem to never be at a point in my work, when we have blitz crits, where I'm happy enough with it, or far enough down a path I know I'm going to continue to be able to gain really valuable feedback from them. That's been kind of sad for me because I feel like we've had amazing opportunities to talk to successful and wise artists and I've butchered them because I'm never at a point where I have a lot to say about what I'm doing and can have a dialogue about it. Anyway, essentially I was liking my paintings ok. I knew I wasn't "there yet" but viewed them as steps along the way, and then the first guy I met with essentially told me I didn't know how to paint. Which, I know isn't true, but it made me look at the paintings I'm doing and try to figure out why he saw them this way. I'm experimenting with a new way of painting and was trying to work out the kinks, but the comments I received were entirely unhelpful. He just ripped on my use of color, said nothing was coherent within the painting, criticized my studio practice, etc, etc, etc. I think what confused me most about him was that I've seen his paintings and they are far from photorealistic or naturalistic. They have a distinct abstracted sort of messy style so I thought he would be more receptive or at least helpful in terms of talking about painting that way. I think the most memorable thing he said, when I was trying to explain my interest in both photography and painting was "A lot of people say photography is...death. And then painting is...about reiterating death." I can't remember the exact words but it was something to that effect. I'm not sure what I was supposed to take away from that.

To be continued...

Senior Sem Pre-Break, Pre-Crit

So this is all long overdue but I figured I might as well document it as I begin to settle into whatever I'm doing for the rest of the semester. Back before break, the day before our big blitz crit I had this idea involving glowsticks, prompted by some pictures on my phone I'd taken the night before. At something of a standstill in my painting, I figured why not embark on an impromptu photo project that was somewhat related. Also, my roommates were extremely gung-ho about modeling--volunteering themselves before I even knew I was doing this--so I figured I better jump on the chance.

I ended up taking a series of pictures of them moving in the dark with glowsticks around various joints and parts of their legs. I thought it was really interesting how this connected to some things involving movement and color that I was exploring in my paintings. Unfortunately, due to timing of my class schedule and classes scheduled in the digital lab I was unable to make decent prints of these photos for the critique and had to be content with small prints made on an average color printer. Oh well. It was just sort of for fun anyway, but I think it was a cool experiment and I'm happy I seized the moment and did tried it out.