Toilet Paper, Utilitarian Product or Artistic Medium?

Another sketchbook entry from the year past. Just going through and reliving the good times! Proof positive that:

1. A good artist can make the magic happen using anything available

2. Creativity is not bound by budget

Mithu Sen, Visiting Artist

Not long ago Mithu Sen, contemporary artist, visited us and offered this terrific lecture. Though there were some A/V problems, initially, it all worked out in the end. She was erudite, funny, smart, and showed amazing work. Plus, her visit prompted my colleague, Kathryn Myers, to invite us all over for dinner. Which is great, because Kathryn is an excellent cook. We took that opportunity to introduce Mithu to marshmallow peeps. Someone had to.

Betty Lou Starnes, art historian, serves up some peep goodness. Mithu Sen chooses pink.

Mithu Sen and Kathryn Myers, post-talk. All's well that ends well.

Grad Crits, Revisited

At semester's end, students and faculty gather together to reflect, ponder, critique, kick some serious ass and, apparently, sometimes confuse the graduate students. It's an entirely useful process, but also difficult and a rite of passage. If they survive they get to come back in the spring for more!

For my current UConn colleagues, and our students... can you find yourselves here?

Grad Crits, Midterm, Fall 2013

A subjective record of the conversations/interactions/trajectories of our MFA in Art crits. It's true:
1. There was no heat (brrrr)
2. There was coffee
3. There was art
4. Artists (faculty and students) really do work hard (crits are an all-day Saturday event)

Snack Foods, Investigated

While out drawing on-site with my students the other day (trying to encourage the "sketchbook habit," don't you know), my own entry included the following. Maybe a good example for the students about challenging their notion of what proves to be appropriate or valuable subject matter? Or, maybe just the mundane, banal musings of an illustrator on the loose in a town with a Subway, and not much else. Enjoy?

Boboli Gardens, Sketch Crawl

On Saturday I took my University of Connecticut art students on a "sketch crawl" at the Boboli Gardens in Florence, Italy. For the uninitiated, a sketch crawl is a group of artists getting together and drawing on location. It was a beautiful day and we had a great time. We even enjoyed lunch afterward, courtesy of Palazzo Rucellai (where the students are currently enrolled). What's better than a morning of drawing? A morning of drawing followed by as much pizza and salad as you can eat.