Intermediate DM: Unconventional Ideas

Dear Intermediate DM class (although intro DMers might find this interesting),

I have two unconventional ideas I’d like to try with you:

1) Lets NOT meet on Tuesday (Oct 27). Instead, I want you all to call me. If we meet as usual on Tuesday, I’ll only have a couple of minutes with each of you---if you call me we have a more reasonable amount of time.

My phone is 401-369-0263. I’ll take roll when you call me. I’ll mark you absent if you don’t call before 2pm Tuesday. Call anytime starting now.

2) I would like to try a new critique format for project 2. I’m inviting three artists to come to your opening: Ayumi Ishii who just completed a residency at the prestigious Sculpture Center, Sean Salstrom who teaches at RISD, and my collaborator Megan McMillan.

They will talk with you, see your work and write down what THEY REALLY THINK. This is a rare opportunity. My aim is to steer our conversation away from “is this good student work?” and towards “how does this compete in the real world with real world expectations?”

Further, It will be your job to introduce each of them individually to your work. I’m interested in your ability to articulate your ideas on the fly, in a casual art gallery context to people who you don’t know.

My suggestion is to be able to summarize what’s interesting about your work with as few words as possible (usually people are only interested in your concept for about 3 sentences). The goal is to get them interested enough about your work to want to know more.

They will record their REAL impressions of your work and give it to me. On Thursday, I’ll collate their notes with my own impressions and crit each of you IN ONE DAY. You heard me correctly, I’m going to shoot through everyone’s crit in 2 hours.

Lets break the mold of what a crit can be. I don’t think me lecturing (with little discussion) is the ideal crit format, but I think it will serve as a solid companion to the lengthy discussion style crits we enjoyed for the first exhibition.

This will have the side benefit of giving us time to consider the final exhibition.

My hope is that you all are awarded an accurate idea of where your work stands. My fear is that this would become too hard and that tears will be shed. My guess is that you all would rather know the painful truth than the beautiful lie.

Your career starts now. Artists, are you game?

M