PAFA MFA 2 Fall Week 11: T-Minus 4 And Counting

We are 4 week from the end of the Fall semester  and our final reviews begin on the 6th. They are trying a new format with multiple reviews happening at the same time in multiple rooms and splitting the faculty up into smaller groups. The hope is this will facilitate a better review process for everyone, the drawback is that not all the faculty will review everyone's work as in the past.

But you have to break some eggs to try something new.

 These are the works of my fellow students in Mike Gallagher's class that was dealing with the various themes and topics we have been talking about in class. the idea is to create work dealing with these ideas but also having it relate to your own work.

                                   I like that my classmate Joel is always drawing in class

I've kept up with the smaller paintings as my time is still compromised but I did get out and get some plein air in last weekend. You can read about that over on my Philadelphia Plein Air blog

I wish I had more time to get out but that' just the way it is till I'm done in the spring with school.

Lots to do this coming week with the Thesis draft due, and two more paper/presentations coming up, but my regular gigs. Right now Friday nights have been painting nights at school for me, since its the only time something is not due somewhere for someone. I might start the crunch on the final big painting I started over a month back.

This week we had two assignmnets due in my seminar with Mike Gallagher, one was "The Everyday" and the other was a " mediated image".

The everyday was a drawing of my cats and the mediated image was a digital image I made from a photo I shot of a figure.  Now we have our final assignments which is to do a presentation on a subject for the whole class. I think I have one that might be interesting---or not. Someone always says what you do is boring.

There was a lot happening this week at PAFA as well with he final Gallery 128 student show of the year and an Allumni show in the Historic landmark Building and museum.

                                                           My painting The End of Play

I was honestly surprised my painting "The End of Play" was accepted into the show, its the one painting with the most love it or hate it feedback.

                                                                   The Alumni Show


 There was a lot of good work in the 128 show, my fave being this cool dino head sculpture, the second being this chair.

 
I talked the talk with several fellow students before I scooted next door to the alumni show and saw old buddies like Rob Stack who graduated almost 2 years ago.

 

Then it was back into the studio for some painting into the wee hours. I also got my spring schedule and it looks good, got the critics I wanted and I have only one seminar class, so I hope I'll have more painting time.

                                              Morning Lot 15 x 9 Acrylic on Heavy Paper

Week 15 Fall Semester

The fifteenth week of school was a busy one for me, there were 4 events this week on top of teaching and work, a memorial exhibit, the 128 gallery show and First Fridays.

I had to co-ordinate an Open Studio for my floor at school. This was just an informal, basically open studio just for the school, not the big one which will happen next spring which will be open to the public. I had to jump back and forth a few times hat day between my studio and teaching my Storyboard class down the street at Uarts. I think I went back and forth 6 times that day between PAFA and Uarts. I am the floor monitor for my floor at school. this year they decided that every floor at school should basically have a point person to deal with issues that arise in peoples studios and to be an interface between the students and the admin at school. They also pay us a nice little stipend for it as well which is nice.

So every week since november two floor a week have been having an open studio, this week it was our floor and the 7th floor.
I made a little sign to advertise it and bought some snacks to have on hand for visitors.

I also had one of my paintings accepted into the latest 128 gallery competition at school. I decided to submit my painting of the train in the 69th street station.It was also First Friday and there was a memorial exhibit and the Trust gallery for one of my fellow students, Chris Brennan who tragically passed away last month. Along with several of my friends we went to the show of Chris's work to show some love and support to his family. it was a nice way to celebrate Chris' life and art and I know must be a big help to his family to see how much people liked and remember Chris. Mike Gallagher who helped me guild my big support for my painting was a man above helping Chris's father frame a ton of Chris's work for the show. That's one of the great things about PAFA, we are a small school and pretty close knit, we also have great teachers like Mike who always go out of their way for the students.

Here is the big monster finally done, I have two more coats of gesso and then some oil primer and I'll finally be painting on this thing next week.


Mike helped me so much with mounting the canvas to the support, it would have been a lot harder without him.
The sign I made up for our floor.
Most of my studio mates and Dirty Palette buddies where there and we had a steady stream of visitors all night. There was plenty of apple cider and cookies too to go around. It was great to also get to visit other artists studios and see what they are creating.
I also painted a bit more on this experiment of a painting. The pose is over with the model so whatever i have to do now will be on my own.

Next week is the last week of classes at school, so it will be a busy, busy week.