I saw Dan Miller had his sign up sheet scarcely populated the day before his rounds, so I signed up for a 1:30 critique.
I'd prepared a comfy chair and a portfolio of 2D drawings from my 666 Serpents drawing project that I'm doing for another class.
Well, he sits in the chair, and I'm not guiding him to the drawings, so we talk a bit about what's in front of us in regards to the studio- and it's moderately good news.
After the Ken Kewley workshop I took out my 'feelie' project that I'd worked on over the summer. It is a felt painting and the joke is that it is also a 'felt' painting. It looks like a flag that my mom would've hung at our old house in Fort Meyers; (my mom got into the habit of hanging seasonal flags outside of our house. They were cute, and it was fun to see them rotate.)
Dan talked about how this piece makes him think of a travel poster, and that if he were to see it as an advertisement, he would like to go there. I thought this a high compliment. I brought up Rob Roesch and a conversation I'd had about 'feelies'- a polemic term referring to works of art that are like 70's was was pedal novelty stuff, and Dan recoiled, because I think I was subconsciously asking him if he cross=thought about his work in a context of 'feelies', which, I.e. hipster bullshit. Seeing a slight panic on his expression I flipped the conversation around, to change the topic because I thought I'd hit a nerve. .
I know Dan's a conservative guy, or a libertarian, or something. He has a video where he's asked if he listens to Rush Limbaugh, and he says "I'm an equal opportunity listener", so I liked that.
I kind of chilled out with Dan, because he's an old man and doesn't need all this pugilistic foolery. He wasn't stoked on my snake drawings, (and neither am I. . ) but, on one kind of paused and said "well, this is good, but there's no background, and you see it the first time and it's cool, but then you keep seeing it and it gets so tired. Put a background on it." so That's good. No more objects in space, or rather deliberate objects in space..
Another thing is his idea for the student show. It's confirmation of something special to me. I keep hearing it. Just 'do this'; and 'this' referring to how I organize my studio. Dan mentioned an unforgettable wall where the kid just hung everything he loved. The kid sounded by way of allusion autistic or something. Anyway, that's in contention for how I might do the Student Exhibition wall.
Thanks Dan.
