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Thursday, September 6, 2012

Nights like these.



I don't know about you, but my thoughts are random and chaotic. Over the years I've found that keeping a to-do list really, really, really helps me stay on track... until I loose it or ignore it. Ha. Since I'm a stay at home mom, I truly have learned to treasure my "me" time. When my son naps, I draw/paint/sketch/package orders/etc. There are some nights, such as this, where I know I have a lengthy to-do list but I just find myself starring off and looking at the photos on my office/studio wall. I go through my old art archives and relive my high school or college years, where all I would draw were portraits of celebrities. I miss doing that.


Today I was going through my deviant art page and found a contest that had me flipping back in time again. Its a contest in which you choose one of your earlier pieces and re-draw it with your new and improved skill. I was looking at my old pieces from art school, my spring head girls series. I loved working on them so much but was always heavily critiqued in class and was once told "surrealism is dead. move on." Yeah, that was told to me by a well known art critic doing a guest teaching semester. It really stuck with me.

It wasn't until I started my Mexican Pop Art series in 2007 that I was understood and praised. It was something so comfortable to work with and so obvious that I had ruled it out for years. I pushed everything else aside and focused solely on my Mexican Pop Art series, to this day. I enjoy doing that work so much. I have plenty of material to choose from. My whole childhood, in fact.

Today I miss my spring head girls. Today I want them to come back. I really dislike having unfinished projects but unfortunately, I have many. I'm slowly whittling the list down and it feels great to cross them off. They really like to invade my mental space. Currently, I'm working on Golden Girls portraits. Yeah, I know! So awesome! I know I'll get to my spring heads soon since I have made peace with the critiques, five years later. One of my favorite books, The Artist's Way, talks about how art teachers know how to break a student down in order for them to grow as an artists, but very few know how to build them back up. I find that to be true. I'm glad I've had teachers that have supported me along my journey, whom I currently hold close to my heart.


1 comment:

  1. What a terrible and irresponsible thing to say to an aspiring art student. He/she sounds just like those people whining all the time about how annoyed they are that artists still paint, because "painting is dead."

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