PAFA MFA1: WEEK 1

As many of you regular readers and followers of my blog might have noticed I took a bit of a break from posting in the last month as the stage of life was reset here at Casa Manley. Oh, I've still been working on the Judge Parker strip and doing some freelance jobs and even went to my first con in a few years last weekend.

My new studio on the 9th floor, it's almost ready to sling paint in...

But the biggest shift was starting my first week in the MFA program at PAFA where I have been a student since 2007 and just graduated from with my certificate in painting this last May. Things were pretty dicey with the whole financial end in the past few weeks and I really wasn't sure the money was going to work out until the last week or so, and from what I've gathered I wasn't the only student who was/is facing financial issues. I had even planned to go into school and haul my stuff out of my studio which I rented over the summer right up till about 2 weeks ago. Since I transitioned from the undergrad to the grad and had been accepted I was allowed to rent a studio over the summer, but just moved my books and stuff down, locked the door and didn't set foot in it until last week. I think even though I hadn't planned on it I decided to take a break from PAFA and painted at home all summer. Lots has been going on mentally and personally these last few short summer months and I think I had just burned myself so brightly at both ends toward the end of my graduate year, I need to stop the spinning plates…or a few anyway. One of my galleries I was in, Parke Schaeffer changed hands and I'm no longer there, but I am still in Rodger LaPelle in Philly, so I will be working to get out of Philly and into more galleries outside of this area. It had been my plan all along to enter into the Master Program at PAFA from the Certificate program from the very beginning, which allowed me to have a studio my 3rd and 4th years, a big boon for me as a painter. This also meant I was not going to be getting a BFA, but going directly to the Masters--which I could do at PAFA and one of the best deals I think about the school. My thinking was always why take the BFA, loose painting time to liberal Arts classes when I could go into the Masters program directly if they accepted me.

So I did my orientation last week and met some old friends and made some new ones, ( many newbies having found out about the school and followed my journey via my blog) saw some old teachers and met some new faculty or faculty that I knew by sight but not personally as there are some teachers that are only MFA faculty and some that are both grad and undergrad like Dan Miller, Renne Foulks, both of whom I know well and had in my undergrad. I made it through the wall of stuff I had packed into my new studio, including lots of stuff friends also left when we had to all vacate our old studios. I will say I really miss my old studio on the 4th floor, and the new one has no window, is smaller and doesn't thrill me, but I'll make do and hope next year I'll get a great studio with a window again. The main thing I am excited about is painting again and pushing forward and in some familiar ways and new ways as well---which is what the master program is all about. I only have two classes, a writing class and a drawing class so I should have plenty of painting time, I decided to forgo auditing any classes and just give myself as much studio time as possible. The MFA is only 2 years and I know it will go by FAST!

Some of the MFA faculty which is headed by Dan Miller, an amazing artist and person who's been involved with the school since the early 40's.