I came an hour late, because i'd rather go to class late than unprepared. we were presenting our test pieces.
I felt completely railed against, and then i had to tell the backstory. all my pieces DO have concepts, I'm still bitter about the one professor who did my semester review and wrote that my concepts are weak. I've got concepts, you just don't have an imagination. I guess I really like telling pieces of stories, isn't that what we're doing, anyway? I don't know why people "can't understand" what's going on in my work.
Does that mean I'm a bad illustrator? That I'm not communicating?
Do I care?
I don't know. Those are all valid questions.
ANYWAY, I hate talking in front of people, and my stories are pretty personal, so I started getting really frantic and nervous and the story kind of stumbled and fell out of my mouth in this blubbering heap and I was so embarrassed by the end of it and a couple people said, "wow." And I wanted to disappear.
WHAT I LEARNED TODAY:
That I need to let go.
Actually, I think that's the lesson of this year for me. I don't trust people, and I guess now I don't trust myself? I was so sure I did. Damnit! Maybe I just don't trust myself with art. The big complaint in Degree Project was that my illustration did not match my experience whatsoever. It was very fine ink work with watercolour. I know it's true. That's not how I approach anything else in my life.
On a related note,
... I don't know if I'd go so far as to call myself uptight, but I know I'm definitely not laid-back. I pretty much always want to be doing something. It gets worse if I haven't danced lately. I'm probably the least biggest fan of "just chilling" in existence. Like on Friday, when Liz was taking acid with her roommates and forgot to call me and then when she did and I went over, they were all just sitting in the living room. One girl took a blue crayon and drew an arch on a piece of paper and showed it to Jeff and was like, "Look how cool this is! It's so beautiful!" And he looked at it and said, "Why is it pulsating like that?"
HM LET ME THINK..MAYBE 'CAUSE YER ON ACID??
and Liz was just having Sevi teach her guitar. I thought I was going over to party with her, you know, drink some wine, smoke, put some records on and dance in her living room till we're down to our knickers.
Nope.
The evening got even more thrilling when 4 or 5 of them left to go to the liquor store and I stayed behind with this guy who started meditating and intermittently would explode with anger at the cat, who was playing with a bell. The worst of it was when he tried to TEACH me how to meditate, I am so adverse to being taught things without my consent. I find it incredibly condescending, even when I know it's meant well. THEN he told me that my body language was melancholy.
Liz' roommate Jessica came in and she's one of those girls who squeel their hiii's and I kind of cringe and throw a hey at them and pray that they go away but for some reason they decide that I am just SO COOL. So I went to the bathroom and cried and hid in Liz' room until they came back.
Fine. I was feeling melancholy. But that totally wasn't what I was intending to communicate. Plus, we'd watched a movie about letters Vietnam soldiers had sent home during the war in my 60's class that morning and I had a lot of stuff on my mind about war and what it does to people.
Eventually we ended up on the roof listening to some shit indie sleep band. The girl was doing sexual yoga with glowsticks, Liz couldn't stop hula-hooping and was the center of attention of the guys who WEREN'T (a) withdrawn and staring at the wall, (b) goddamn meditating.
I observed this and couldn't stand it anymore.
I need to find a way to let go in a way that I won't feel compromised. I need to extend the way I feel at shows to the way I feel when I am making art.
but how?
1 comment:
I think your thesis has the strongest concept in the class, and the one with the most personal, genuine feeling behind it. This is why I was very surprised to hear that you got railed on, since I feel as though that's what Linda is pushing all of us to do. The difference here is that while people like me were striving to think up some false sentiment to appease her, you actually had something personal worth portraying. I really hope this doesn't get you down. I think the essence of good pictorial story telling is just to hint at what your portraying in a way that is just enough, not beat people over the head with concept. I really enjoy the way you are very subtle.
I really hope you are feeling better soon.
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