OK, I’ve been trying to come up with an entry where I’m pissed and just haven’t been mad at anything lately, but then I realized that I actually have been mad at something, but kept forgetting about it. Is that good or bad? Ah well. This has to do with my peers in my Advanced Visual Arts class.
This class is me and all the other graduating senior art students who are doing work for the senior show. I know many of these people and have had at least one class with each of them. I probably would have ended up friends with several of them over the years if I was more involved with the art department, but a little thing called SFI happened at the beginning of the freshmen year and that basically became my personal extracurricular activity even if I can’t put it on a resume. Oh well. No regrets.
There is one dude in that class who I totally could have been great friends with, but the rest of them…well…really no regrets not being friends with them. Why? Because the vast majority of them approach their art work in a way that kind worries the shit out of me. So many of them always, ALWAYS focus on the technical issues of their work. They want it balanced, want it ordered, want one thing to compliment another. They never focus on the emotional level of their work. They do their work because it’s an assignment, not because it is their opportunity to put themselves into the piece. Then when it’s time for the critique, they take the exact same approach. They discuss how the piece can look better or be more balanced. Yeah, but…what about the message its supposed to give about the artist? Oh that’s right, so few of you are actually trying to make a piece that speaks about you on an emotional level. Forgot you were all dead inside.
I have this piece I’ve been working on for a month for the senior show. Each week we bring in our work in progress and each I feel like it’s the same thing. Now before I go on, let me state that it’s not the criticism that bothers me. I’m used to that. I’ve been having my work critique since I was 12. I appreciate constructive ideas. But like i said, these people are a little one dimensional.
The piece has a large drawing in the center of a woman curled up in a corner. Around the drawing are several photographs of the faces of people as though they are staring at the woman. The whole point of this piece is this central figure and it appearing as though these faces are staring her down. That is what I want to get across. Everyone I have shown this to sees the sense of hopelessness in this center figure. Good. That is exactly what I am going for. What was suggested last class? That I take out the woman in the center and use just a blank piece of paper so it is as though the faces on the side are looking at something not there. WHAT?! That was suggested by the professor, and others agreed with her!!! WHAT IN THE FUCK IS THAT?! What kind of bullshit, half assed, fucked up, nothing to do with anything at all narrative is that you dumb, worthless fecks! That not only it dumb, but it completely throws out what I had in mind in the first place. I want people to come along, see this figure, see the faces starring at it, and think the obvious about it. These other people want to do that stupid, cheesy, “but what are they looking at” crap. All because it would give it more balance and who knows what the fuck.
Like I said, I don’t care when someone criticizes my work. I’m used to that. Hell, someone can say it outright sucks. But that wasn’t what I’ve been getting. I’ve been getting people who have been missing the obvious…that’s why they worry the shit out of me. And even more, is I then tell them the obvious and it still goes right over their heads. Then I see their work. It’s good stuff. It really is. I have respect for the talent they all have. But when they talk about it, most of them are clearly doing it to fill the assignment. There is almost no reason for them to have done what they do. Maybe they don’t want to talk the personal reasons behind their work, but if an artist can’t do that then game over. Instead they are concerned with having even numbers of whatever images and making sure the top of the piece is heavier than the bottom. Yes, I know that is something you learn not to do in like 7th grade art, but the whole point of being an artist at this point in your life is to damn the rules and do what you feel. An artist shouldn’t think out their work intellectually. Fuck that.
I don’t know. Maybe I’m wrong. Either way, they bother me.
