Networking (sfhdsifsdikfjl!)

Time in 1:30pm

"Networking" is one of those dreaded words for artists. It's that thing we know we should be doing, but aren't, can't or won't, depending on your temperament. I've been actively working on being a better networker even though I'm not sure exactly what that means. I'm finding ways to network (or the uglier word, schmooze) in ways that I am comfortable. Everyone says to go to galleries and just start talking to people. Go to the openings, go during the day, chat up the gallerists.... I love talking to people, but can't do it if it'll seem like I have an agenda, especially when I see their eyes glaze over at the mention of ANOTHER artist that wants to meet them.  

It is much easier to invite everyone over to my place though, to look at my work and hang out without the gallery aura of status climbing. So if you are in Chicago this Saturday evening you should come by. Find my email in my profile and I will send you the details. 

Continuing with the networking, I've come across some very interesting artists and want to share them with you. Renee who I have actually mentioned before is having a couple of openings this weekend (which you should check out) and Tom Gallagher is a photographer working on an interesting project:

Renee Prisble Una-

I met Renee at the Open Crit program at the Hyde Park Art Center. She is an installation based artist that uses various materials from ceramic to iron to recycled thrift store items in her work. She has work in two shows this month with BOTH openings on this Friday evening. Here are the details:

Perimeter Gallery
October 16th to November 14th
Opening Reception: Friday October 16th, 5-8pm 

Perimeter Gallery
210 W. Superior St.
Chicago, IL 60654
312.266.9473
Hours: Tuesday-Saturday 10:30am-5:30pm

Northeastern Illinois University, Fine Arts Center Gallery
October 5th - October 30th 2009
Reception: Friday October 16th, 6-9pm 

The Prayer Wheel Project was curated into a group show at Northeastern Illinois University. The show, Fast Forward, consists of artists whose work looks past the somber events and conflicts of the past several years towards an optimistic future. While recognizing the impossibility of a utopia, the work focuses on concepts such as community, spirituality, and democracy.

The Fine Arts Center Gallery is located on the NEIU campus, check the website for parking instructions.
5500 N St. Louis Ave
Chicago, IL 60625 
(773) 442-4944

Tom Gallagher:

I have also come across the work of a photographer here in Chicago who specializes in portrait photography. Tom is working on a project right now in which he is photographing artists in their studios/workplaces. This potentially will be displayed in a show or a book format in the future and I'm considering being involved in it. (If you are an artist that is interested in participating you can contact him through his website). I'm not posting any pictures here as I haven't asked permission, so go take a look at the website to see what I'm talking about. 

How the critique went

Last night I participated in the Open Crit program at the Hyde Park Art Center. I posted about this particular program a couple of days ago with all the details if you want to take a look. There were four artists that were critiqued last night: Kate Friedman (mixed media artist), Alan Thomas (photographer), Renee Prisble Una (sculptor and installation artist) and myself, and the crit was well attended by a very engaged audience. 

All of the work was much higher calibre than the first critique and it was great to be in good company. I presented four of my pieces from the "I live in a duplex" series which I've been working on this past year. Basically, I started out with the idea to paint two portraits together on one panel to see how they would interact. A painting of a single person is one thing, but a painting of two people tells a different story. 

I received a wide range of feedback- it seemed either people really liked what I was doing with the pieces, or really disliked it. Each critique is facilitated by two people that are fairly well established in the art community. Last night it was the photographer Dawoud Bey and curator Nathan Mason. They really liked the way that I captured the psychological tone of each person but both thought I was unsuccessful at painting double portraits. Dawoud suggested I cut them all in half and then I would have something. 

I really tried to flesh out from them what they thought wasn't working. A big problem for both of them was that not all of the portraits are spacially correct. For example, in some of them it looks like one person is right on top of the other, and then of course each background is completely white and void of spacial reference. While this is intentional, Mason said that for him this made it so that there was no interaction between the two people in each piece. This is probably the feedback that I had the most trouble with. While I understand that the spacial ambiguity might flatten out the images, I didn't understand the leap to then saying there is no interaction between the two people when they are the only thing on the picture plane. They also said it looked "forced" which perhaps refers to the fact that not all of the portraits look natural in their placement. "Clumsy" was another way Dawoud put it.

I've thought quite a bit about whether or not I want them to be spacially "correct." I've always come to the conclusion that I want it to be ambiguous because they don't have to exist in the same physical space (in my portrayal) for them to interact. They can interact in many ways besides being physically next to each other, and this is what I wanted people to think about. They are really only connected because I painted them together. Since both Dawoud and Nathan had a pretty strong feeling on the matter, I'll have to take another look at my work with this in mind and see if I look at them differently; to re-evaluate whether or not they're working.

Part of the reason I started this series is because I'm interested in the stories that are co-created between the viewer and myself. Last night many people chimed in with what "story" they thought was being told in each piece- and they're ALWAYS different from one another. There were people that adamantly disagreed about what was going on in each scenario and I think a lot of people were fascinated by the apparent diversity of responses to one painting.

The critique gave me lots of great food for thought, challenged me to be able to explain my work and allowed me to meet some great people. I even had one woman give me her card because she wants to be included in my series. It's been a while since I had some challenging and critical dialogue about my work, and for those of you that know me well, you know I thrive on it. 

Here are some detail shots of the other artists' work: on left- Kate Friedman, on right- Renee Prisble Una.