Art should be like sushi- less is more.

The show is up, the deed is done. I want to make a poem about how it feels to finally have finished but I come up with none.

er....

This morning, Aaron Moulton, curator at UMOCA came and had a guest crit with the BFA students. It was laid back, he had good comments and everyone was laughing at one point or another. One thing that I really took from his visit today was the idea that "less is more." There is no mystery anymore and sometimes we can get carried away and say too much. This topic came up with Holly D.'s work and with my own. Maybe my sculptures were getting carried away, maybe I haven't quite activated the space enough for my own purposes but it's all a learning experience. I am not going to change anything at this point. It's over and it's time to move on. It made me really think about art in a different way. Sometimes I get caught up in the richness of things, objects, ideas....that I forget to keep it simple and to let the viewer wonder.

Keep it simple stupid.

I am excited to start new work-eventually. I am needing a break. After graduation next Friday Brock and I are going to San Francisco and I am thrilled. I am going to see the SFMOMA while I am there and possibly check out the Art Institute. The semester is ending on a good note and only time will tell what happens from here. 

10 days to opening

It's 10 days away from the Thesis opening. I still have a lot of work to do on my large paintings, and the sculptures, but I think I have enough time to get it all done. In reflecting my semester, I think I put forward my best effort and I just hope that in the end it all looks good.

Since I haven't been blogging (at all) since January, I think that I lost a little bit of my direction conceptually. It's still there, but not actively thinking about it and just being worried about producing the work has definitely put a halt to any development. I don't think it's bad to focus on simply making for awhile, and I think I certainly need to take a vacation outside of my own head a little bit. I am trying to prepare the final stages of my artist statement, and I think that's going to be the hardest part of everything.

...

My work has essentially been centered on experience. Describing a certain reality of my own, and trying to imply one with the viewer. It stemmed from some kind of mental-emotional state I was in, but as I have worked through the paintings, I have also outgrown that state of mind. It still is true, and still applicable, but I think I am trying to look at the big picture of things. The figures in the work, both painting and sculpture are important for describing experience, creating empathy between viewer and work. Humanism is something relatable. Honestly, when I look at my paintings, I feel sad for the figures. I want to save them, but I am the one creating them and their insane environments. I think that is an interesting dichotomy between what I am capable of and what I am actually doing. I think that's what it's really all about. It's not about what kind of environment the figures are in, or what they are doing, but rather how I relate to them in that moment in time. In creating them, I felt like I was playing the role of absolute power , but now as I reflect on them I feel like I want to save them and I feel helpless with them.