On Critiques And Pizza

Today was the second day of orientation. The day started off with us breaking up into four groups, two of which went over what equipment we could take out from the cage. I don’t know what the other two groups discussed, I wasn’t in them. There’s a good selection of equipment to borrow including a bunch of Canon 5D Mark IIs, Profoto lights, 4×5 cameras and lenses, Mamiya medium format cameras and various other bits and bobs.

That was all followed up with a pizza lunch. To be brutally honest, I was pretty annoyed. There were about 8 pizzas on the table: ricotta, pepperoni and sausage and peppers, broccoli and other vegetables. I like my pizza plain and simple. But it wasn’t until after I had already eaten two slices that about 5 more pizza were brought into the room: all nice delicious looking plain pies. What’s up with that?

After lunch, we were again in four smaller groups for little practice critiques. The master critique is the semester long critique course that meets each week. Today’s critique was a short practice introductory crit and it was not with the professor I will have once classes start next Tuesday. Critiques are the core of the MFA process. I had today’s practice crit with MFA chairmanCharles Traub.

On the Subject of critiques:

Day two of orientation and I’ve received quite a few emails about the blog. Most have been positive and supportive. The issue that some people seem to have is that I am going to expose my classmates in some way or violate their privacy. This is a blog about me and my experiences. All that will be posted from crits is some of my work and the feedback I receive. The point is to give people a sense of what sort of language is used in an MFA critique. You won’t be in school with my classmates so there wouldn’t be any added benefit to showing their work. That said…if something extraordinary happens or there is an amazing dialogue, I might ask the student involved if he/she would be into sharing it with all of you.

This semester, my master critique is with Penelope Umbrico. That starts up next week and I’ve decided I’m going to wait to post my work and feedback until that begins.

Today was a rough overview of what to expect of the process. A lot of people think that in a critique you show your work and you’re given answers. Today it was made clear that things don’t work that way. Said today: “Change your paradigms. Lose your heroes. Shake yourself up, buddy!” You show your work and opinions are expressed and questions are asked and you have to come up with your own answers. Like Neo in The Matrix (forgive me for the reference)…There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path and you are told, hopefully, exactly what you needed to hear.