And so it ends.

The semester is over.

Last week was our final Seminar crit (as well as 2 other finals crits that week for painting and figure). It went good I suppose. Nicole recorded both of our crits...which I still need the audio from **ahem ahem**. People had a lot to question/state about my work. Which is a good thing I guess that it's making people think? I got some pretty good feedback. The hard part of the whole thing is knowing that the semester is "over" but you work isn't. It's not like a final test where you take it and your done with the information. Now I really have to use that feedback and create a new body of work...and boy is it hard getting started on something "new."

Since school got out one week ago, I have been lazy and I will definitely admit to it! It was well-deserved veg-time. I feel like I have so much free time it's ridiculous. I haven't really gone in to paint at all. I took down my wall and moved everything from the school studio to the BFA house so it was out of the way for summer. I'm not too worried that I have been doing nothing for a week (well I have been doing other stuff that is productive--just not painting). I am leaving for Italy in less than a month and I know I will be on the biggest "art-high" of my life while I am there and when I get back. I need to start thinking about a new body of work though. I feel like I am done with the littles, and I want to explore the diary aspect more.

My final semester grades....Woohoo!

Seminar A-

Painting III A

Figure Panting A

Art History A

My Seminar wall 

My work after  4 months :)

Our art is tearing us apart!!!

Javier's celebratory lunch after final crit with my brain twin

The finish line is near...

Last night was the opening reception for the BFA Senior Thesis show...and it was amazing! There was so much good work there. It was fun to see all the people that I had seminar/thesis with all semester long and to see how the final product turned out.

Nicole and I also received our scholarships last night. I was awarded with the Visual Arts Department Scholarship for $1000 and the B.Y. Andelin Scholarship for $481. I was so thrilled. The daughter of the B.Y. Andelin scholarship donor came up to me after the ceremony and I gave her the biggest hug in the world. She probably thought I was a weirdo, but it was nice to put a face with a name. I am so appreciative and so lucky that I received both awards. It gave me a boost that I needed to keep working strong.

Today, Nicole and I were working up at the school. I started siding my little paintings and they look really good. Before, they were just pushed out from the wall and it was hard for me to transform the masonite to not look like masonite. But now, even though they aren't sanded/painted yet, they look like little canvases. I am excited to put everything together.

I have to install my work on Wednesday night for the seminar crit on Thursday morning. I am thinking about drawing onto the walls from some of the works but haven't decided yet. I also need to work a little more on my artist statement. I will post pictures and my statement soon!

OH and Brock brought me home flowers today because he was so proud of my scholarship award :) It was so cute. And his mama gave me a little present last night...I feel so loved!

Teamwork, baby.

So Nicole and I are art brain twins, ya' dig?

We just weren't feeling it with our figure paintings yesterday. During the last session we decided to switch paintings. It was freeing because we both didn't care if either painting got "messed" up. She started working on mine and I hers (Nicole's is the top painting and mine is the bottom). Both of our paintings came out 100 % better within 20 minutes. I took a before picture (in my last post), and you can definitely see a difference. It ended our last day in figure on a good note-and we thought we were pretty damn funny doing it. 

The old, the new, and the in-between: re-invented

I haven't posted any pictures of work lately. All of the above are relatively new (Except for the picture with 5 paintings piled together).

I really think I have seasonal depression or something. As soon as the sun came out yesterday/today I felt rejuvenated and all my worries went away. You think I'm joking, but I am dead serious. The last month or so I have been fighting my work. I have been battling my concept and the process relentlessly and didn't give myself much motivation for producing work. I have to let them exist. I can no longer fight it.

I have realized that I don't need to justify every move I make. I also realize that this is perspectively a new body of work, and just because I have been doing this work for 2-3 months doesn't mean it's time to move on. This semester has put me through hell. I have been on a roller coaster of ups and downs. Sometimes, I think the chaos is quite necessary.

Conceptually, my organisms have transformed over the last 20 or so paintings. They were clumped together inside of a white void after first, then tried to separate yet still remain attached to one another. Now it seems as though they are their own entity. Not pieces, but a sum of its parts. The whole of it is it's own thing and not many things.

Talking to Matt yesterday, as usual, inspired a little more. I had my paintings laid out in a sort of order and we discussed a calendar or diary of sorts. That is exactly what these feel like to me at times. Each individual painting is a record of my emotional, mental, and physical state. Not only do they change by mood, but as each day goes on and as the work develops in itself. I was really intrigued by this idea. Meditating on it today gave me a project idea for this fall, when I take a printmaking course. I think it might be fun to try making a book and keeping record inside of it, with small organic paintings, like a diary. I would try to do a painting a day until the end of the semester or something, as well as continue with other work.

I'm glad I can end this semester with some understanding and peace. This is the last week of class and next week is the BFA oral defense. I'm not nervous anymore...I was..but not anymore.

2-day paintings:

The female figure painting is the one we worked on last week. I had the paper on the wall so I had to keep turning to look at the model. It was challenging and I about gave up, then I was encourage to keep going.

The male figure is this weeks painting. Tomorrow is our last day to work on. I almost like last weeks better even though I struggled more with it. It's almost like this weeks is coming to easy for me, especially after working on the wall. 

So that's an update on my work for now. In other exciting news, I got a call today from the WSU art department letting me know that I got a scholarship :). They wanted to make sure that I would be at the BFA Thesis Reception this Friday night. I am so happy, Nicole and I both are receiving one. 

The much anticipated...

Jenny Hansen made this amazing video.

Enjoy.

Disconnected

I am unmotivated.

I am trying really hard to finish the semester with a bang. I always want to start over and do things fresh. I am always looking forward to the next semester and dreading the end of a current one. Matt pointed out to me the other day that I fizzle out towards the end of one, and I do. I don't know why. After a certain point I just don't care anymore.

I feel like I have no energy. No energy for anything anymore. It is showing in my (lack of) work. My mind cannot focus and I have been forcing myself to do the little work that I have done.

I am in the studio right now, trying to spit out some more collaged littles. I feel so indifferent to them now. I was so excited for what they had become, now they feel like a burden. Every time I sit down to work on another  I think, "this is where i start, this is where it ends...blah blah blah." I think my enthusiasm for them has lagged because I feel like I know what they will all look like in the end. I want to be working on something else but I don't know if that's something I need to tune out, or if I have actually exhausted my concept and materials.