Nine Opinions

When I arrived at the Studio this evening, about ten minutes before the critique's scheduled start, there was a small crowd waiting in the basement for me to open up. More arrived soon after, so we had a total of 9 participants, all of whom have been there before. As usual, a very diverse group of artworks. The above photo shows Jill's paintings, Edy's dress (with attached recycled plastic pieces), Jane's paintings and drawings, my just finished print, Katie's painting, Michelle's box assemblage, and Lisa's sculpture (on the floor).

Molly showed two bodies of work- the large round wood carvings in progress (intended to eventually be printed on cloth) above, and dozens of blocks with attached relief prints (some of her little robot characters).
Molly had us line up the robot blocks in the hall as seen above, and then knocked them down like a row of dominoes (below), and idea based on something said in October's critique.

Adam's contribution was more of his painted boxes, as seen above. Other than a different presentation (the shelf/table instead of a wall), the boxes aren't much different from previous versions. What was different was the meanings he associated with the boxes this time around. Usually the critique is a good evening of discussion, but tonight's was particularly spirited, in a good way. People often had differing opinions regarding individual works, but everyone brought up interesting reactions to whatever particular artwork was being discussed. As a result, people tended to ignore the timer we use to try to keep things moving, and we finished about 30 minutes later than usual.

As for my print, this is the first time anyone there saw the finished version. Got a very good reaction in general, with a few people saying they thought it the best one yet in the boardwalk series. The more involved part of the discussion about my print began with a question about color choices, and led to talking about memory image versus pure research as a focus in the work. My feeling was that the former was more important, since nothing in the scene is a copy of any existing boardwalk, but rather it's all inspired by bits and pieces of at least 5 different boardwalks. However, on location research was key to the color choices, which I doubt I would have made without my direct observations.