PAFA MFA 2 Fall Week 7: Open Studios--Tip Us Over And Pour Us Out

This past weekend PAFA held its first MFA and Post Bac only open studios in conjunction with the annual Open Studio Tours that happen city wide in Philly each year. With the new head Clint Jukkala there is a new push I think to get our MFA more out into the spotlight. We have an annual school wide Opens Studio in the Spring of every year and I have been a part of that several times now in both the Under grad and my first year in the MFA.


 



That's a well trafficked event and the place usually is packed. Traffic was pretty decent on Saturday but pretty light Sunday for most of us, so we socialized with each other and I got to meet a few fellow students I had not met so far which is great. I did have some good feedback on my work, nice conversations and made some new friends. I did want to try and work but it was just too broken up time wise to really concentrate o anything too difficult. I did rough out some of my Judge Parker strips.


It was also good to see some of the work of my fellow MFA's, especially the first years as I have not seen much or any of some of their work. I am happy that there seems to be a lot more painters and figurative painters as well. It was also good to get feedback from the public on my work vs the critics. The public really liked what they saw and almost nobody commented on what my critics have said or given me as criticism, including the artists who were touring the place.

 

I think its good to also get outside perspective because all schools are myopic to some extent. I loved getting back what people thought of the "draped or Bride" series, especially the group of you women from Moore who came by. I am working on what might be the last piece in this series for a while as I have a hankering to do something else.

We are reaching the halfway mark in the semester and soon the first draft of our thesis will be do, but man----I just want to paint and it seems I have been doing little of that in the past month with all of the other activities going on.



 I guess this is a common complaint with most of us in the program---not enough time to paint, draw, sculpt, assemble, etc. Many of the MFA's are doing installations, and I did have one in mind, but nixed it because it would be too much work for too little time, too short a run.


You have to make some tough calls. I am not an installation artist, nor a video artist and most of this type of work doesn't interest me, but I would try something despite the fact PAFA doesn't really have the facilities to do and edit video like a place like Uarts.


I could do stuff on my Mac, but again---do I waste time on something I have no interest in pursuing to the detriment of my painting?

 

I have three jobs between school, commercial work and teaching twodays,  plus the guest lecturing, painting events, etc of late so I think I have to be very realistic and say NO for now. If I get the thesis out of the way and enough painting done I might entertain something in the spring.

I can see Halloween on the horizon and Tom Turkey a few weeks after so I think for now I'll just keep my head down and try and paint as much as possible. It was also my birthday this weekend and I got together with my awesome friends and had a great dinner at my favorite restaruant , Little Saigon in Upper Darby on Saturday. Good food great people what can be better? I also go some swell gifts including this comic page drawn for me  by my student Tahirah Pryor. Next week and papers looms so back to it!