I attended a function for artists at the Palm Springs Art Museum yesterday. It was a critique sponsored by the Artists Council and put on in our very own space within the museum. What a concept! The critique was moderated and advertised as “a self-led art critique workshop. An afternoon set aside for discussion and expansion in a friendly environment with other artists.”
For the most part artists presented newer experiments and were looking for help in deciding which way to go. There were quite a few workshop attendees with pieces created during some of the wonderful workshops available at the museum.
The delight of discovery and the wealth of techniques made these presentations a highlight of the event. It became apparent that artists don’t always know which is their strongest work but a group of artists could spot it immediately and a consensus was easy to form. The comments were insightful, helpful, and well received.
There were a few artists working in series who presented their new series to the group. These were particularly interesting to me as I am partial to intention promoting execution. One such artist was Gary Borgstedt who photographed landscapes using only fabric and some expert camera manipulation. The piece he displayed was a beautiful landscape who’s cache was increased exponentially when we discovered it was fabric arranged in the studio.
Another series by Lucia Grossberger Morales stemmed from an idea of robots leaning toward the Buddhist middle way resulting in a series of sacred bots, 3-D printed figures arranged in in traditionally inspired composition.
I brought an abstract painting which was finished but I wasn’t as happy with it as it could be and asked what I could’ve done different and got a lot of very good comments for my next piece.
It was a wonderful experience and there was good food and banter during the 2 1/2 hours we discussed art rather then commerce.
