Camrose Circle

Camrose Circle

Thursday, March 20, 2014

2008

2008 was my last year in college.  The last class I took was Art Thesis. It was a laborious and stressful class for me. So much information was jam-packed at the end of my paid for education on how to be an artist. The emphasis of this class was an art show at the end of the semester that we put on, presented and represented ourselves. Super cool. We had also entered this class with the idea of what we were going to show and most of us had the work started. We also were presented with the idea of a thesis statement which was the highlighted purpose of this class. The instructor Jennifer Garner was amazing though I felt like she hated me the whole time. She was a director of an amazing gallery and also an alumni of Metro State College of Denver.

What does your art mean? What is the political and social movement you are embodying with your art? What do you lead the viewer to believe? What moments in history are you reliving through your expressive representations?

Ummmm. I will reiterate that we either had already started the bodies of work, or some people hadn't even started at all.

Every class we worked on this 1 page explanation of who we are as artists and how this canvas or sculpture represented a certain definition or explanation. The words were criticized and narrowed down rewritten and read allowed daily. Some people had 10 pages that flowed out of them so effortlessly and had to work hard at cutting it down to 3 paragraphs and say everything they wanted to say. I remember this one artist Caroline whose work was so poignant and mature. She's now a working artist in LA, I've stalked her. She had such depth and a political stance. Her life and childhood sounded like that of an artist. She had a huge resume and she was at least 7 years younger than I. It was intimidating.

Others like me, struggled to write anything at all "Its' pretty...?" My girlfriend hadn't even started her paintings. ( Hers were one of the two artists that sold anything at the show)

I'm writing this because 1. I'm procrastinating again and not painting 2. This class really is one of the reasons why it's so hard for me to just paint.

I'm always searching for a reason. A stance, depth, subject matter. I worry so much about it that I actually talk myself out of painting.

When I started taking painting classes I had never really painted before. I remember the fire I felt when I completed my first one. I think it was a monotone acrylic of a man smoking a cigar??? ( I was really making a statement on how the penis in American culture is represented in marketing and social media as a symbol of hierarchical advancement of the male and his ability to wave it in the face of the substandard female with no repercussions.)

I was so proud of myself after that painting. I think I hung it up in the bathroom for a while. I couldn't wait for our next assignment.

 I had always been an artist since I was little. I come from an artist family. All of my siblings are ridiculously talented. I just hadn't been given any direction. I'd taken a few classes before Metro in my early 20's. Life drawing and all the art prerequisites before they allowed you to take painting. But ah the color is what did if for me.

The brushes, the canvas, the different layers. How you orchestrate the painting with the different colors. I had the rules of color and composition and nothing else. The subject matter could be anything. We weren't told what to paint just guidelines on how to paint. I was so free. I was getting really good critiques. I was having fun. I found my passion.

Where did this go? This Thesis class fucked me up! We were spoon fed the real art world. What it takes to make it. How to dot all of your I's and cross all of your T's. Basically if you don't do all of this crap you'll never make it. What in the hell kind of message is this? I'm pretty sure Monet wasn't standing in his garden capturing the light throughout the day on his canvasses to impress some art buyer. He was intuitively just being an artist and painting what he loved.

I know that this' all just an excuse. But I need to get it off of my chest. I'm the one not doing it and letting my brain get in the way.

My niece is in art school as well and just switched her major to graphic design. This is the exact reason she switched. She was questioning herself too much and felt the bullshit right off the bat. "Can't I just make something pretty?" YES!! Its' pretty and most likely someone will buy it for that really simpleton non complex reason.

And honestly so much of it is so over my head why do I even care. It's relevant because someone else said that it is. Relevancy is potent when it's relevant to you. When you genuinely connect with a piece and resonate with what the artist is trying to convey. I love when you see something and your whole body reacts. Goosebumps and a racing heart are a sure sign of something really meaty and beautiful.

The first initial reaction from art is aesthetic. It's color, composition, spatial relativity. The emotion and depth comes after sitting with a piece for a while. And if you don't "get it," you can just read the thesis statement.

Make what you LOVE. BE WHO YOU ARE.

Cigar series coming soon!!!


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