Friday night I gave the "View and Review" a chance and signed up to have my artwork critiqued at the Polk Museum of Art. The host was
Vilas Tonape, a teacher at
PCC. My expectations of the critique were that I would take something that I wasn't very happy with, get some feedback on how to improve it and go from there. Apparently Mr.
Tonape's expectations were drastically different. He started out by putting us on the spot, opening with questions like, "What is learning?" and "How do you define art?" The artists were asked questions about why they do art and he said that he saw no individuality in
anyone's piece and called everything that wasn't done in the renaissance, "Drive-Through" Art. He evaluated all of us as if we were applying to get into NY museums and calling ourselves the next Picasso... when I think all we really wanted was some useful feedback. At least, that's what I wanted. I believe there's a difference in
critiquing and insulting and what Mr.
Tonape did was the latter. To place salt in the wound, I was told that there would be appetizers served and about half way through the blood-bath,
PMOA placed baskets of
chex-mix out, to which,
Tonape had no qualms about claiming a basket for his own, placing it by his chair and munching on handfuls throughout his rant. Lovely. I'm so glad I paid $15 for
that. I'd go again only if another artist was hosting and I think I'll sit this one out in the audience.
So the Car Festival was fun on Saturday. Even though I didn't sell much, it was good exposure, the weather was beautiful and I met some great people, one of which was Larry Becker, the director of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals. Here are some pictures from the day:
I am grateful for all the things that Lakeland does to give people out in the community something to do and for all the ways that they support the arts.
Saturday night I got to visit with my Aunt Saelon, who is an artist in San Fransisco. To see some of her fabulous artwork, visit
www.saelon.com.
Hope all of your weekends were great as well!
-Jordan
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