Fighting the Crowds

We postponed our critique from the usual first Thursday slot it's had this semester to avoid a conflict with the show Molly and I have up in Rahway right now, but a few days ago I learned about another big problem.  Seems that our new date would put us in competition with a grade school talent show being held in our building's theater.  I offered options to the regulars, but the word came back to stick with Thursday, so that was the plan.

Today was also my last Thursday afternoon class of the semester.  Generally by the time I finish class, put away all the props, clean up the room, carry everything to my car, and get on my way, I tend to get up to the Studio just minutes before our 7 pm start time.  No drawing today, just critiquing and grading, so even though I finished only minutes before the usual ending time, I was able to get straight to the car and take off for Ocean Grove.  I came up Main through Bradley Beach about ten past six, and as I approached the building I could see cars were already filling the first row of our back lot.  I gave the main parking lot a quick glance as I came around the building and grabbed one of the last few slots in the first back row, which you can see through our Studio windows.  There would eventually be three rows of cars back there.  I had enough time to kill that I went across the street to grab a slice of pizza before any of our people arrived.

I was happy to see that several did arrive, making walks of various lengths from where they finally found parking.  Once people made it down to the Studio the show had no impact on us.  We had six bring art and a few others just come to enjoy the evening.  We opened with some smaller works.  The board above has woodcuts from me and Mary, and three new photo collages from Jill.

Next up was Vince, with three new paintings. His familiar grids are starting to unravel (visually), but with exciting results.  Below two more larger pieces- a colorful (spray) painting on wood from TJ based on a boardwalk sunset, and a canvas from Katie, featuring an oddly beautiful mutant dandelion.    Regulars Tim and Harriet were in attendance, but didn't show anything.

My piece got a fairly good reception.  I gave a basic introduction to the story and explained the image, including my concern about the heavy chunk of black in the upper left.  There was an opinion that I might be able to balance the area with color choices, which was going to by my first plan anyway.  Everyone agreed that color choices in generally will decide how successful the image is in the end, and quite a few found themselves craving pancakes.