An update

WoW

I have had two final exams as of this moment: Advanced Studio Painting II and Physics of the Universe.

Advanced Studio Painting's exam went for over five hours.

Before I get into that, I must note that the professor has resigned from her position since she got married and her husband can afford for her not to teach for a bit. She's moving to Memphis.

We started off the exam with critiquing Michael Webster's work. While the professor, Amy Freeman, checked out the video projector from the media center, we pulled out a farewell cake and card to surprise her. She was shocked.

After passing out cake, pizza, and drinks, Amy told us the craziest story. I believe her, though, because I believe weird things. She had two cats. One was named Othello, because it was black and white in color. Othello had the ability to talk. Seriously, cats do have the ability to talk or mimic certain voices. Nobody believed Amy until they met Othello. Othello died. Amy's friend was pregnant and three weeks away from giving birth. Amy has a dream one night about her cat. She tells us in the dream she was running and running up these stairs. All of the sudden she reaches a particular step and her cat comes out of it. She said it was like an actual birth, juices and tissues and all that jazz. She also sees that the cat's eyes go from jet black to gray. She wakes up and there's all these numbers in her head. She writes them down. She realizes her pregnant friend is going to give birth in accordance to these numbers. Amy, the pregnant friend, and some others go out for Thai. Late that night, her friend's water breaks. She goes into labor up in the same time that Amy dreamed. The baby was one ounce off from what Amy dreamed. It gets creepier. Amy comes into the room to see the baby and holds the baby. Everybody else is outside of where Amy is holding the baby. She tells us that the baby's eyes were closed, but as soon as they opened they were jet black, then turned to gray. The nurse walks in and gets the baby. Later on, the nurse tells Amy that the baby just won't stop talking. It's just a talker. A talker like Othello, Amy tells us. At her friend's wedding, Amy finally meets the baby and realizes what Amy is talking about before Amy could even verbalize it.

Crazy.

Back to the critique

What was exciting about Michael's work is that he made a video depicting the racial tension in Greenville, NC. For those who don't know: Greenville's Fifth Street used to change from Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd through a predominately African American neighborhood, then switch back to Fifth Street after the neighborhood. It was a trippy video, because he had clips of the Wizard of Oz overlaying video of him driving from one end of the street to the other and back again. It's hard to describe without the actual video on url.

Other studio participants' work was very dull and slack. One person's work was very well done and conceptual, but not cohesive. Each piece was cool, but this is Advanced Studio Painting. She could have done tables with different stuff on it and gotten a grade for it. The coolest thing the person did was take bullets from her first time going to the firing range and paint animals on it. I liked that.

Another person did "abstract" pieces on watercolor paper. I have to admit that these pieces were impressive coming from where the person was coming from at the beginning of the semester; however, I feel she put objectivity into something that is supposed to be non-objective. I have no problem with objectivity, but drop that non-objective bullshit. I liked the work, but I did not like the reasoning.

Lassette Stevenson-Kornegay brought really beautiful pieces to the critique. She's a minister, but she has an obsession with ugliness and death. I love it. One of her paintings was a mannequin with the light, coming through the window, blinds, and translucent curtains, on its form. The conceptual element isn't what impressed me, but the technical element. She paints in acrylic and it's subtractive painting. Every element is detailed in an interesting way. It's not boring details. Another amazing painting she did was a worn and torn ribbon bow. I didn't know what it was she painted, but the technical elements were amazing. What really impresses me about Lassette is that she has a child, a husband, and her mother to care for and she still finds time to paint. She told us some days she sleeps for a couple of hours and she's back doing her life all over again. She's great.

Holly Ann Sailors, link to the right, brought almost her whole life to the critique. She did so much it was ridiculous, but not really. She painted and collaged hardcore since the beginning of the semester. People didn't have room to make excuses when Holly brought in thirty paper painted panels out of the sixty she did, three medium sized paintings, and one very large painting. She really utilized her time despite breakups, family drama, a business minor, and 17 credit hours.

My work got critiqued efficiently. People told me to work on presentation and maturing my new body of work. People complimented my work ethic, concept, and the technique I was using. I suppose I should explain my work at this point. My work is collage meets graffiti meets the eighties meets fashion meets drag meets homo-eroticism meets vagina meets penis meets me meets post-post-modernism. I didn't use a painting palette this semester for this work. I plan to use one in the future. I did pours of color. I used black vinyl letters. I used charcoal paint, graphite, charcoal pencil, hemp rope, and found posters. I recycled my own drawings. I ripped up things I thought were ugly or things I thought I couldn't part and I painted on top of them to produce something that has made me proud.

Finally, I think I am working in a direction that will get me into graduate school.