How was class? Part 2.

The final week of class was critique and then work-work-work. We were supposed to end the class with 2 final large pieces and 2 smaller experimental pieces, but I only wound up with 2 larger final pieces because I am too old to do an all nighter...or rather, it is in the best interest of my children that I get sleep and not turn into Momzilla, destroyer of fun.



This started out with maps of the greater DC area and the Roanoke-Salem area of VA. I was trying to figure out how to relate them to each other, and John wandered by and said that the smaller map looked like a bush, so I went with that. This one leaves me with a sense of blah. It's such a heavy subject, and there's so much baggage attached to where one grows up, it was really hard for me to effectively communicate all of that on an 11"x14" piece of paper. Plus I'd sort of visited the whole idea of my home state before.


If looking at this makes you dizzy, that's because it was photographed during a thunderstorm with out a flash and without a tripod. (the hazards of a having an overly curious child is that you put things out of their reach and then forget where you've put them) I'm sure that at some point in the nebulous future it will be re-photographed and possibly re-posted, but I make no promises.
This was one of those pieces where I started with a bunch of images, a line in my head (in her dreams, there was always Paris), and then set about to create a story with images and unwritten narrative. Which is way harder than it sounds. This took a lot of arranging, rearranging, sketching, and sleeping to get it just so. I think ultimately it's really successful b/c it evokes a mood and draws the viewer in for closer inspection.

So what I took away from all of this grueling work and crazy schedule is as follows:
1. you cannot create a successful work if you do not create crap first.
2. push yourself! you are capable of more than you think.
3. nobody will die if they eat hot dogs for dinner 3 nights in a row
4. in my next life, i will be wealthy enough to have my own studio space and hire someone to do the washing up

How was class? Part 1.

In a word? Sublime. There were 5 students (4 women and 1 man) and our instructor was John Parot--he was wonderful. He was able to identify exactly what my strengths and weaknesses were and he did it in a way that allowed me to improve on my own. I had forgotten how rigorous studio classes were--we created 6 works in 2 weeks. Which means that while I was in class little things like laundry and dishes fell onto to somebody else's to do list.

At any rate, here's a visual run down of week one:


This was an in-class assignment/warm up exercise. We were given a set period of time and told to do a work that was red. It was really interesting to see how the 5 students worked within the parameters of the assignment.


This was another exercise, we did part in class and part at home. The assignment was to play with scale. The critique that came out of this work was really fantastically useful (and kind of obvious in hindsight); I was told to think about the background and to try to give a sense of narrative to the viewer. As in "what's going on with that stuff?" I think I got a little better on the next two...

This was homework. The text reads: come to my window, my baby, with me, and look at the stars that shine on the sea. I was trying to evoke a mood and I think it came off pretty well. To do it again, I think I'd tone down the tree and emphasize the crow a little more.



This was part 2 of our assignment: do something that's the opposite of the first piece. The text here reads: Bird, o Bird! Come under my bonnet, and you shall have bread with honey upon it, You shall have sugar with coffee and tea, and play every day with baby and me.
Here I started with the text, and sat and thought for a while. And my head went to The Owl and the Pussycat by Edward Lear. In that particular work, it's the owl that woos the cat, and I wondered how it would go if a cat tried to seduce an owl. At any rate, this work is probably my favorite because it's a little weird and unexpected.

A sparkly!

Check me out! I haven't even started my class, but here I am with images. While Mom was here for a visit, we had a collage nite--wine was drank, things were torn, pasted, painted. A good time was had by all. Below is what I came up with:


It measures 5.5" x 7"...ish. It was a good exercise, it was fun, and while there are things about it that could probably be re-worked, I'm just going to chalk it up to a learning experience and move on. Which brings us to the next image:


Which measures 6"x4" ish. I did this last night while waiting for No Reservations to start. In the bottom is a picture I took in Athens (circa 1995), minus my hand. I have finally found a use for all of those otherwise unusable vacation photos. I'm fairly pleased with it as far as composition goes, and once again, I could sit down and re-work pieces, but I feel that as an exercise in speed and spontaneity it all turned out fairly well.