Return of the Critique

A rare thing happened last month- we skipped the critique.  Just the second time since we started these things.  A combination of holidays, semester start, plus whatever Molly may have had going on.  After missing the first two weeks we both concluded we'd be better off skipping the rest of January and just waiting until February.  The usual Monday didn't work for Molly for whatever reason, but after polling a few people she suggested Thursday.  So I put it out there to my list.  No positive replies, but several people came through the door tonight, so it all worked out.

For the moment I still lack the ability to edit and post photos to the web, so it will just be words tonight.  I arrived at the Studio around 5:30, mostly because I needed to do a little printing.  The next show in Belmar will have a Hollywood theme.  Not one of my priorities, but whenever I'm looking for art about a specific topic I look through my 366 piece Fourth of July series and it's often covered in there.  And sure enough I have a piece about using a bit of my Spring Break that year to read the novel version of The Godfather, checked out of the college library.  The image I created borrowed things from the film, so this will do.  I took a quick proof tonight, and I will eventually go in with some watercolor, maybe a little sepia toned style.

I just finished cleaning up when people started to arrive.  We had 7 in attendance, 6 of whom had art. I was chosen to go first, which is very unusual, and I opened with the collaborative piece I was working on early this year.  The most prominent aspect of it was two birds from Tim, and he was very excited by what I had done with them.  I had left an empty space in the upper left corner in case someone else had an idea to add to it, but Tim and everyone else thought it was pretty resolved now.  If I had thought it needed more I would have added it myself, so I was fine with calling it done.  Showed my Godfather piece, explained the original print story and my plans for the new Hollywood version.

From there we went to Jane, who brought some pieces in progress- a pastel portrait of a niece, and two watercolor landscapes.  Tim had a large colorful piece, constructed like a collage of small elements.  I compared it to a dense urban scene packed with billboards, neon, and colorful store windows, which others agreed with.  Molly had the latest version of her turtle piece, now a finished ink on glass drawing ready for conversion to a screen, plus t-shirts of one of last years designs, which she handed out to everyone present.  Mary brought a block with what is her largest ever woodcut, a large portrait piece.  So far it seems a successful enlargement of a smaller portrait piece, but I look forward to seeing how it works out.  Christina had a three dimensional piece, designed like a view through a window in a brick building.

So a good evening, good art, good snacks.