Five Years of Gathering

The first of the month, time for another critique.  Didn't get a lot of confirmed plans to attend, but I did manage to get the favorite cheese, so I was ready to go.  Unfortunately the parking lot up at the Studio was jammed full of dance moms, with no sign of anyone leaving any time soon, so I settled for parking a couple of blocks up the street.  We ended up with a relatively small crowd, just 5 participating artists and one regular with no art but just wanted to hang out with us.  It was kind of like the earlier days of the group.  Perhaps a coincidence, but this meeting marked the 5 year anniversary of the first meeting of this critique group.  Some of the same people involved from those early days.

We got things started with Molly, who had some of her recent dragonfly pieces around the room, which  are just waiting to be poured with resin and delivered to the cafe in Somerville that commissioned them.  But mostly we talked about a new piece she has going, shown above.  the inked carved section of the wood on the right goes back to the early days of the Studio, but the left half is new and has her excited.

Next up was Tim, one of those people with long time connections to the Studio, taking classes with Molly and coming to the earliest critiques.  Above are three new pieces of mixed media drawings.  Tim selected me to go next, and I showed the latest update to the Asbury Park boardwalk scene, from last week's drawing.  That led to some discussions of the series itself, with one of our new regulars asking about the choice of the diptych format.  It made her think of stereo images, the kind from long ago viewed through a stereo optical device to simulate a 3D effect.  Not what I'm doing, and not something I'm looking to do, but  it's an interesting association.

Next up was Vince, and the large (about 4' square) painting shown above.  He's worked with grid formats many times before, but the group was very excited by this new piece, where the grid is a bit looser and the composition more open.

Finally, Margery showed a new, still unfired clay piece, which generated a lot of discussion about the process involved in creating it, as well as the possible meanings.

As a result of our small crowd, we had time to talk about all the work, to digress into other topics as we tend to do, and still finish on time.  It's been a long day, so I don't mind that.  My morning class at the university included a critique of their first projects, and they found it hard to believe that I willingly put myself through a critique and find it an enjoyable experience.  But if it wasn't fun, we wouldn't be still doing it five years later.