Where is Everybody? (Updated)

I'm guessing that it has something to do with our rescheduling this month's critique group meeting (maybe people forgot to mark the change on their calendar, or maybe it's related to the holiday), but tonight we had one of our smallest attendances that we've had in years. Seven artists showed up, with five actually bringing art (though the others brought food and beer and opinions, all of which are very welcome in our crowd), so we could have a little more time to spend on each artist. This was also the first time in a very long time that I didn't remember to bring my camera with me, so we are relying on some camera photos from Molly to document tonight's art. Up top we see Lisa's dead sea bird sculpture, Molly's ink doodle drawings, and some early wood block sketches and colorful painted lap trays from Mary. Below are the trays again, and Molly's large drawing in progress.

Vince brought another one of his colorful grid drawings (above), this one in progress. I originally put up the second version of my latest boardwalk idea (below), but with nothing else to go up on the tack board, I put the first version up next to it so we could compare the two.

I presented the pair, told the story of how I ended up finding the second view (on the right), and stating why I was leaning in that direction. Not everyone necessarily agreed. Some saw more possibilities in the composition of the one on the left, but for me it makes the boardwalk itself too small and overemphasizes the iconic buildings in the background. The one on the right includes a foreground that can include a wider variety of boardwalk characters. Some people thought that the new version was a bit claustrophobic, with the buildings pressing in on both sides, and the large central street light adding to the crowded feeling. That is something that has concerned me, since I had to cut a big chunk of the space that really is there so that I could fit the two buildings into my format. Then Molly had an interesting suggestion. Maybe it was seeing the two diptychs side by side, but she brought up the possibility of doing the scene as a double diptych (four panels), with one containing Convention Hall and empty space, moving the big central lamppost well over into the right panel, and the second having the open boardwalk in the left panel and the former Howard Johnson's building at the right of the right panel. This would be a deviation from the standard for the series, but there are precedents in ukiyo-e of 3 or more panel groupings. They could still be presented/framed as two individual diptychs, though it wouldn't be too large to also print and frame as one piece. And it would restore the proper proportions to the scene and give me that much more space for people. I don't know that I will do this, but it's worth sketching out to see how it would look.

Since we finished so early tonight, we had time to relax around the refreshment table and discuss the possibilities of a group show for our critique group. We are very diverse in medium, style, and level of experience, but a lot of good work has hung in this space over the past 4.5 years, and we could put together a very interesting show. If something comes from it, I'll post it here.