A little high school talent

As I've told you before, we are a Pre-K through 12 school. So today when I left school I stopped by and visited the high school art teacher. These oil paintings were on display outside her room. The two paintings above are by Megan. The 'lips' painting is small, maybe 9" x 14", and the portraits I think are all 18" x 24".

The paintings below are Johna (left) and Dakota (right). These paintings, and Megan's above, are all self-portraits, in homage to the work of Chuck Close.

Since these lovely gals are all my former students, I'm proud to be able to share their work with you.

Chuck Close at NAEA

Today's convention Super Session: A Conversation with Chuck Close & Irving Sandler (chronicler of the NY art world, art commentator, &educator)

Amazing, amazing. This session made the whole conference worthwhile, which was good because I was very unlucky at some of my workshop choices. Here are some choice tidbits from the amazing Mr. Close:

• "The prevailing wisdom always sucks."
• "There are only two things grad school is good for (nothing you will learn will ever be useful): Work habits, and the sense of community."
  
• "Ease is the enemy of the artist."
• "If you know what art should look like, it's not hard to make some of it."
• "Inspiration is overrated."
• "Inspiration is for amateurs."
  
• "Don't sit around and wait for inspiration; just sit down and get to work."
• "We don't always know what we want to do, but we always know what we DON'T want to do."
• "Self-imposed limitations are always good to move you to a new place."

And so much more. Mr. Close was sharp and witty, and regaled the appreciative audience with funny stories particularly about his time as a young man in the Yale School of Art. He spoke about his peers at that time, all names that we've learned about in art school.

That's it for tonight! Tomorrow - about MoMA.