END OF SEMESTER BIG WRAP-UP CONCLUSION POST:

I feel that the main benefit I took from this class was that working on a smaller scale and making a lot of pieces quickly helped me identify patterns in my work and figure out what aspects of my work are ""successful"" (for lack of a better term because the idea of unsuccessful paintings is hinged entirely on the viewer's experience/interpretation of the work and leaves out the process and making of the work but whatever!) and what i need to change or work on or switch up. I realized a lot of my forms end up looking the same, and that I have a lot to think about in terms of depth and flatness of my shapes and colors, layering, subtlety versus drama, composition, etc. I think I got frustrated when I realized that a lot of the forms in my work are pretty similar and my gestures tend to repeat themselves, but if I hadn't had to churn out so many small paintings one after the other I might not have noticed that and I wouldn't have been able to work on it.

I learned from the readings too, although I won't pretend I found them nearly as valuable as the critique and discussions about work and the time spent making it. I still really like that one passage from Blues People about erasing the separation between the artist, the artist's emotions, and the artist's means of expression. That's how I feel even if it's kind of corny, like i think i am myself and i am also my feelings and my actions which are also the paint and the paint is me. That's the only way artwork makes sense to me. That's why I think I wasn't too concerned with the specificity of making my work "about" the songs, or feeling like it had to "relate to" the songs. Every time I started working I would think about the meaning of the songs or the readings or the videos of that week, the lyrics of the songs, the feeling of the music, maybe play the song I chose a few times while I worked. The connection might not be immediate or apparent but it's there inasmuch as I'm a person who is affected by music and stories and histories and I'm also the same person who was making the works. To me that's a much more powerful way to learn about something: by just letting yourself soak up the parts of it that speak to you, not worrying about it too much but just taking in whatever seems resonant, mulling it over, and then spitting it back out. I've always thought that way, but taking this course helped me consciously realize and articulate that for myself, and reaffirmed that for me.

Probably my favorite part of the class were the discussions about the work, and seeing everything that everyone else made every week. I think you can learn a lot about people through their art (including writing!), and I enjoyed finding out a little bit about everyone's methods, what they like, their tendencies, what they don't like, and watching people develop, try new things, and find out what works for them. I really value getting comments on my work so I want to thank everyone for sharing their responses with me. I find people generally have a harder time commenting on abstract paintings because there's less of a way into them, so I'm grateful for any feedback I get, and even for the feedback and responses given to others. Thanks for sharing your work with me, all the different approaches taken, media used, and meanings derived from songs/readings/works were really remarkable and valuable to me. I wish y'all luck in the future and I hope you keep making beautiful things! best, cristina