NOTE: My last day at the Painting’s Edge summer art colony ended in nonstop critiques. For the buildup, please check out my two previous posts.

Tuesday, 1 July 2008

7:15 a.m. Can barely move after biggest breakfast yet. But feel great now that lecture over.

9:00 a.m. Critiques begin. Pace is one resident artist every half hour for the whole day. Residents arrive at my “station” with their laptops. We start by looking at images of work while they tell me their life stories in three minutes. I offer my observations and suggestions, they listen and ask questions or offer explanations. Some take notes.

Since the residents are full-fledged artists, and not — with a few exceptions —students, there’s a sophistication to the dialogue that is unlike any that takes place in school. Resident artists are here to test their work against artists and critics who have been around a long time.

Sometimes residents take me off to their studios (just around the corner), but with only two and a half weeks in residence, they haven’t had the time to make very much work. It’s just enough to see the touch, however — something missing on the computer screen.

NOTE: The critique system — in which artists subject their work to analysis by a professor while they’re in school, or, in this case, a visiting artist — remains the most direct and decisive way to extract what’s good or bad in a given work of art. Going through endless critiques (remember, I am one of many critics) during a residency at an art colony is not unlike a whale going through plankton. The point is to suck in everything, retain what’s needed, and discard the rest. It’s a truly great experience for those who are open-minded and not too thin-skinned to accept criticism. And for the visiting artists and critics? It’s a great test of how fast and well we can put into words what it is we see — and, of course, of our endurance.

4:30 p.m. Finish critiques and stagger away. Decide then and there I will never think about painting again.

7:00 p.m. Attend pre-lecture reception for new arrival — visiting artist Mark Bradford. He’s replacing us. Lots of people standing around talking about painting. Bradford is a hot young Los Angeles-born artist who’s been in the Whitney Biennial, Miami Basel, etc. Skinny, charming, very tall and handsome black guy who states that he will not allow himself to be pegged as a black artist.

Bradford grew up the son of a hairdresser, went to Cal Arts for both undergrad and grad. When young, worked in mom’s hair salon. Begins lecture by telling audience he’ll get it over with, since he knows someone will ask: “I’m six-foot-eight.” Sharp, knowledgeable and insightful mind, coupled with terrific sense of humor. Handles his considerable fame and reputation with aplomb. Terrific lecture, tons of applause.

8:30 p.m. Dinner at local restaurant in Idyllwild. Talk about painting and painters until 11 p.m.

Wednesday, 2 July 2008

7:15 a.m. First on line at cafeteria. Not so hungry this time. Size of breakfast approaches normal. Facing one more critique because a resident artist approached me last night and I didn’t have the heart to say no. Besides, I want to depart knowing I saw as much as I could.

Sitting with other resident artists who are up early for breakfast, we laugh together about the endless critiques at Painting’s Edge.

Hubby says he’s still dieseling and finds it’s hard to stop critiquing. “I have an idea, one artist says. “Why don’t you go out and critique a tree?”

Hubby looks through the window at a pine. “Say, tree, how about you growing a new branch up there on the right side to balance that one you grew down there on the left?”

And with that, we leave The Magic Painting Mountain.