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...