Time To Show Off

So today was pretty interesting. Most of us got up and left the loft before 10:30a.m. to go sketch up by the water at the Brooklyn Bridge Park. The sun and warmth was a nice refresher, though the chilly breeze did tend to put a damper on things. I'm pretty sure that we got some good work done though. We even used each other as models, especially the fabulous Kathy in her shades. It was really nice. We then grabbed lunch at the local pizza joint and went back to the loft to get ready for our guest. It was even more of a surprise to us when it turned out to be not who we were expecting, but another friend named Richard Gary and someone that he was meeting. It was totally last minute on their part, and we're really appreciative that they came up to visit us.

So, then began the informal question and answer and mini critique. Both artists were photographers, and both very different in their applications. Richard was more of a still life commercial artist. His work was quite amazing and his personal work easily rivaled his professional work. He was a really awesome and easy guy to talk to. After they both went through their portfolios and answered our questions about their work, it was our turn. We split up into smaller groups to show each of them our work. We got to talk about our work, intentions and aspirations as artists and get their feedback on what we were doing. It was definitely enlightening to get perspectives which differed from our peers and our professors. It was definitely a more poignant criticism, enlightening some of us to things we were wondering about our art. Why didn't we like what came out? What could we do about this small thing? Or that one? What worked and what didn't.

I definitely took some stuff in, seeing how important light and composition is important to a photographer. Not that it isn't important to us, but the different forms of studio artists, do think about these things differently. It never really occurred to me about the different views when one dabbles in the different forms of art. I do believe we all took something away from this experience, especially something about what our works represents now and what we can do to make our intention come across more clearly through our process and application of that process. Ideas are definitely tying into each other more and more as the days go by, and it's only on day four. . .

Anyways, after saying our goodbyes, knowing we'd see at least Richard again, whether in a formal meeting or on the street, we went back to our own machinations. Pretty much just chilling and getting our work done. The sketching all around has been pretty sick. Tomorrow is going to be just as exciting or even more so as we are getting up early to hit the biggest art museum in the city - the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We're definitely not getting through this in one day, but it's still going to be mind blowing. And the rest of the week surely only holds more craziness and mind-exploding art and excitement. It's going to be good.