Meeting 14-Semester's End

Well the Spring sememster at school has come to it's flaming end, it just blew right by, each week seemigly faster than the last. In the last few weeks between freelance, school work and the weather it really wasn'y possible for us to hold our weekly meetings as a group. But once the sememster ended we DPCers decided to hold our second annual group critique.

We did this lasts semester where we put up a bunch of our work and gave each other a good crit on the semester's progress. Often we feel a bit slighted in our regular end of semester class crits because they really tend to be group crits at school, and in my experience that means the crit is way too long and not very useful. Honestly, I prefer the teacher to give me a critique, not my peers who often just don't give me much useful to use, or even make any comments at all about my work and besides I paying for the teacher's imput and knowledge, not my peers. In the two years at Pafa so far I find that the group crit to be a waste of time, as a teacher i understand why you want to do it, but so often the energy just drags and the process leaves most feeling boared and watching the clock. The tracks I am in seem to also have a lot of very quite or shy types who don't have much to say anyway. I know the other DPC members feel the same way, so we decided to give ourselves a really good crit, the one we really wished we got.
We set up in studio 1021 and piled our work up on the easels. I have to say it's very encouraging to see so much work lined up. I didn't have as much as the other members as I had already taken a lot of work home when I cleaned out my locker.




Being honest with your friends is important and taking a crit is usually looked at as a negative process by many when in fact it's a great thing. It's a way to learn what's working and what's not--and possible solutions to improving what's not. I think all of us shared a great deal of frustration this semester and really look forward to getting into the studio at school to do our own thing.

To be frank, I had a very mixed semester myself. I know I grew as a painter but I found much of the process to be frustrating and disjointed at times. There were some classes I just felt could have been more intense and better organized. Freelance was brutal at times too, the balance was harsh. But I can't use that as an excuse for any failings on my end. The bottom line is whether I have made progress, and I have, though I admit, I have a bad case of Second Year itch. Now with the summer here I know I look forward to just doing my own thing and painting and I am really looking forward to drawing an painting a lot with the DPC and on my own. Having a great group of friends on the same path as you makes the journey a better experience.