"I Hate This."

My teacher took one look at Species #1039 with the purple and green swirls and said, "I hate this."  He then went on to elaborate, how he hates crafty things, how the tissue paper reminds him of 5th grade crafts and things his mom might make.  He pointed at the print in the middle and said, This is Fine Art, but then pointed at the tissue paper and said, This is not Fine Art.

Yikes!

Afterwards, in my attempt to console myself, I pretended to be his art therapist instead of his student and asked, "Why does the association with your mother make it not Fine Art?"

I mean, of course I didn't say that.  But it made me feel better to think about saying it.

He gave me suggestions on how to use my crafty influences in a way that is Fine Art.  He did this while we were standing back-to-back in the screen washing room and he happened to look at my screen.  It turns out he likes the species, just not what I've done to them.  I was glad he gave me suggestions because when he just flat out said he hated it, without any suggestions on fixing it, I was pretty much flabbergasted.

Also, I tried to explain that #1039 with the purple and green swirls was like an experimenting ground for other works on #1039, for example, the one with the brown spots.  He liked the one with the brown spots.  

Also, also, what IS Fine Art?  Why is something made with expensive materials Fine Art, but something made out of magazines not?  And who says I want to make that, anyway?

I don't know.

I'm all about the art as a human behavior movement in art therapy.  And having to think about materials to use with potential clients influences my choices in materials for class.  And having the experience of leaving art school, realizing almost 100% of what I've learned is irrelevant to real life due to lack of funding (ie: no fun huge printing presses or things like that) and having to adapt my art making to what is available, I am not so excited about spending too much time and effort learning how to do things that I won't do outside the scope of the class.  I want to use the class to enhance my own art making skills in a realistic way.

Anyway ... I am trying to integrate his suggestions into my own ways of working.  Let's see how it goes.  Hopefully I will pass the class.

Oh yeah, and I'm going to slap some tissue paper on some of them, too!