Alright. Today Curtis Mann came to our seminar class and talked about his work and looked at some of our works and did little critiques. He is a 'famous' artist who exhibited in the 2010 Whitney Biennale. We went inside the gallery where the student show is going to be held and he critiqued my little 3 paintings that I got in the show. I wasn't really happy with the critique. I mean it's good to get a fresh opinion and stuff. He basically told me that my ideas don't come across in my paintings. I get that. It's kind of a new idea that I'm breaking out in and it's in just its fetal stages right now. He talked for what felt like an eternity about who gives a crap, and why should anyone want to look at it. Maybe I'm being a little hard on myself...maybe. BUT STILL. it wasn't too much fun. I just bit my lip and sucked it up because I figure if I want to go anywhere in the art world, there will be much more of this to come.
It just kind of put a sour note on the day. It was cool to have a well-known artist actually look and talk about my work, but it just made me feel really finite and like I have nothing and everything I have ever done amounts to zilch. I know that's not what it means, but in this moment, today, while it's still fresh in my nerves. This is what I feel. I have to find someway to connect my thoughts to my work and make it more obvious in a way what the work is about? I don't know. A lot is going through my head.
Then I got really bummed and just thought, why the heck am I putting myself through this. There are thousands of artists, probably millions, that have worked so hard for so long and have gotten nowhere. It's just like, well what's the point anyway? Why SHOULD anyone care about why I'm painting or what it's even about. Why should anyone even look at my work if it's only about me. AH. Just agitated. Thinking about all the many more critiques I will have and bridges I will have to cross before I finally come to...what? What's at the end, anyway?
Sometimes I don't feel big enough to be in the art world.
1 comment:
Holly, Holly, Holly what are you worried about? You are an amazing artist and I love your stuff. You are definitely big enough for the art world. At least you got in the school show. I love how you see things abstractly and can put that onto a surface. You have a good sense of design and how to place things. Don't feel bad, I don't think Curtis Mann was saying anything bad, he was just trying to help you make even better art. He was just pointing out a question that came to his mind. He didn't mean it negatively. At least that is how I took it as. :)
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