art school confidential

The countdown to review boards has officially begun. I worked on Thursday and Friday and spent much of that time negotiating my schedule for the coming week, the last week to finish projects and papers before all is due on May 1st. I managed to get a day off and trim another shift so I only have to work about nine hours this week, giving me enough time - hopefully - to finish my studio projects and art history paper. It's not exactly ample time, but I'm satisfied. It'll have to do.

I spent most of the weekend painting so tomorrow I'll take a break, stay home, and work on my paper. I've had an interesting relationship with painting this year, considering I usually identify my artist self as a painter, primarily, but did little of it. I'm coming around to it, but I have moments (had a few, actually, over the last couple of days) when I wonder why I do it. I spend hours in the studio, alternating between five relatively smallish (24 by 30 inches) canvases, and at the end of the day, nothing's even close to complete. I spent most of Saturday, for example, just applying shades of yellow. I feel like I could work on these indefinitely and they'd never necessarily be done. And in the meantime, they definitely go through developmental stages. If my five paintings were a kid, then yesterday afternoon into this morning was definitely their awkward stage. They're getting better, but it takes so long to get them to look like the images I have in my head.

I'll have to celebrate the completion of my first year of grad school by going to the long-awaited release of Art School Confidential, which opens May 5th. Perfect timing, don't you think? It's getting mixed reviews but of course I have to see it. I'm a big fan of Daniel Clowes' comic by the same name and enjoyed Ghost World. I also really dug Claire's art school adventures on Six Feet Under, so I'm glad someone's finally making a whole movie just about that experience. Director Terry Zwigoff is quoted in the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly as saying about the film: "It reflects the state of mind of the protagonist, Jerome [Max Minghella], who arrives at this art school full of optimism and humor, but soon gets all of that stripped away." Yeah, that's pretty much how it works...

Anyway, this image of Xander sums up how I (and I think I can speak for Neal, too) felt much of this year, exhausted and overwhelmed. It's a rough life, you know?