Old Quote:
R:  I'm painting with my pallet knife.
S:  I'm mixing with my paint brush.
*collective gasp*
A:  How could you?
M:  I don't think we can hang out anymore. 
So Paul critiqued my first finished painting today.  Anesidora is done, Brighid and Freya are almost there.  Gaia is next on my list.  Paul says the quality of the goddesses is not the same as the quality of the background (background is mysterious and goddess is illustration-like).  He does not offer any suggestions about improving the look of the goddesses but says that I should paint goddess portraits without goddesses (basically, paint landscapes).  To which I am like WTF Paul?!?!?  He also said my paintings were too easy to get.  On the plus side he said I was a good painter...he also said I have potential (he always says that, usually as part of his reasoning for giving me a B+ instead of an A-). 

My argument for not changing my painting based on the foundation that
a) Goddess portraits without goddesses are pointless (plain landscapes)
b) The contrast in quality can be interesting and meaningful (or is that to hard to get?)
Points of my argument:
1) The goddesses I am painting are from nature based religions.  Therefore the nature is the Goddess, and they cannot be separated (aka She cannot be painted out of herself....or something like that).
2) The Goddess/God/the divine presence is beyond human comprehension and the simple (or low quality) portrayal of the personification of the Goddess is therefore a representation of our inability to grasp "God".  We can see Her presence in nature, but we don't know what she looks like on Her own, undiluted by our perception of Her.  But because we have a tendency to mold things into forms we can understand, we change our perception of Her to be a sentient being like ourselves.  But this is a flat, one-sided, distortion of all that She is (which extends into the infinite and beyond what we can understand or perceive). 

The short version of this argument (and less theological) is that I like my painting and I'm not changing it.  So get used to it. 
I expect a B+ and a lecture about how I have potential come final critique time.  While this is painful and annoying as hell, I prefer it to painting Paul's version of "Goddess portraits".  Also, I have half a mind to stretch a canvas and paint it black and tell him that this is my idea of a goddess portrait without a goddess in it.  Most people think that he won't like that, but since he laughed when Shea said she hated the project in drawing, I expect he will do the same for this (and then lecture me for the way I applied the black paint, no doubt).  How do I keep running into these artistic conflicts???

Posted by: The Witch at 07:27 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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