Some Words on Drawing

there is no bothering with niceties. which is refreshing. particularly in art, where nobody including teachers says anything at all for fear hurting someones feelings. zoltan (who has been teaching our class most of the time, while frigyesh is busy giving speeches at various institutions around town(and whose full name means sultan of the cowboys in english, how awesome is that?)has many times approached my drawing and said -this is no good- and i have no problem with it because i know he knows what he is talking about. thats another thing. having art teachers who know what they are talking about. and looking at the teachers work and saying wow, i wish i could do that, or wow maybe someday i will be able to do that. at tcu most of my impressions ran from -eh- to -thats lame-. so why would i listen to their criticism if they had any to offer. they evidently have not made use of their wisdom themselves. both zoltan and frigyesh create technically magnificent and conceptual rich artwork. art is certainly not easy here. it is a discipline. and it pays off. even the student work is incredible. seriously if someday your kid says -i want to be an artist- send him packing to europe. where they take it seriously.

but of course recieving criticism is not always the most pleasent experience. indeed yesterday i quite wanted to chunk my board out the window along with the still life and then jump out after it. but when zoltan looks at my drawing and tells me in his thick hungarian accent -its ok- i am truly happy because i believe him. because he knows the difference between good and bad. and when he says in the next breath -the chair... it is not so good- i will try to fix the chair, because i trust him.

i did not trust most of my professors at tcu. it is hard to learn from people you dont trust.

i wish i could have taken some design classes in an environment like this. i would probably hate it at times, but at least if i made it through i would know that i had indeed achieved something. at least i would know where i stood, if i was good, bad or ok. being ok is not so bad as long as you know it. at least then you know where youve come from and how far you have to go. what sucks is being ok but being convinced either that you are good or that you are bad. of course yesterday i probably would have said differently. at least as i sat there and for the tenth time tried to draw that stupid cube. i hate still lifes.