Once again it is time for BFA portfolio reviews (Tomorrow Morning). 18 hours from now.

I feel that I have a stronger body of work (or at least a more cohesive one) and a better sense of where I am and what I am doing as an artist. I've taken what was useful from last semester's review, and dismissed what wasn't.

I also feel a lot less trepidation and stress. Part of that is due to having what I consider a better (or at least a more appropriate) committee (though I never had any issues with my self-appointed committee chair last time). This time, I already know all of the faculty on my committee (my video professor, my drawing professor, and my advisor), and I've worked with two of them quite a bit.

Naturally, it's not gone completely; I'm still the center of attention, which I've never been particularly comfortable with. But it isn't preying on me to the extent that it did last semester, when I knew as soon as I got the committee assignments that I was going to have problems.

Allison (my friend who also didn't get in last time) also feels a bit better about her committee.

After tomorrow's review, I'll post the results and then I plan to vegetate the rest of the weekend.

And if I don't get in, I'll not be particularly annoyed.

Well, I didn't get accepted again. I simultaneously feel better about that, and worse.

Better because I didn't get too wrapped up in the idea that I actually need the extra initial in my degree, and because I felt this committee was much more impartial, so the vast majority of the comments were fair ones.

Worse because I actually know and respect the opinions of this committee far more than that of most of my previous one.

Last semester's review commented on how my work looked like “a bad imitation of Myst” and how “game design isn't art”, and how they saw “no value” in digital work. In other words, they were complaining about style, content, and choice of media and direction. It caused more than a little stress, worry, and ultimately, a period of self-doubt about what I was doing (creating a severe artist's block that I had to struggle to overcome earlier this semester), even though I knew most of it was really just bias.

This semester, the committee thought that my content and style were just fine, they simply had issues with my ability to pull off what I'm attempting in a convincing fashion. In other words, they didn't feel that my refinement, skill level, and technique were up to par. Since that's what I actually came to school to develop, that's a pretty fair criticism. It just means that I haven't fully succeeded yet. (I emphatically did NOT come to learn what style or subject matter I “should” be using, or what is and isn't art/fine art. I'm not only not interested in that, I actively despise the mindset, which smacks of pretentiousness.)

It has become increasingly clear to me that I make things far more difficult on myself than a lot of others do; any artist that attempts (or even approaches) photorealism has a much harder time getting across to the viewer when distortions are intentional and therefore not simply a failure to get something right. (In my case, there is a little of both.) In more stylistic work, distortion comes with the territory. In completely abstract work, there can be no question of whether it is right or wrong, simply whether it is interesting or aesthetically pleasing.

The thing I tried to convey to them was that my fascination as an artist and as a person is with boundaries, the dichotomies that they create, and the interaction at those boundaries. I explore where the boundaries are, which side I am on, whether they are real, whether they need to be there, how people react to them, whether they can be moved, and so forth. I poke at all sorts of boundaries: the real/scientific and the fantastic/mythic, rational vs. mystical, ideas of beauty vs. monstrosity, life vs. death, etc.

(That is essentially what I gave as my artist's statement, and what my work is about. It is pretty accurate, and has been part of my personality longer than I've been doing art, but it only covers part of it. I am vast; I contain multitudes.)

As Pete (one of the roomies) says, I am the Questioner.

One such boundary is that between different types of art, between Fine or High art and Commercial or Low art. I think I managed to say my piece on my opinion of that effectively, without coming across as rantish. That is, I definitely don't have much use for Fine Art in the sense where it is used to invalidate or set itself above “lesser” forms of art (which is why I intensely dislike the term “Fine Art” itself … it has an inherent quality of elitism). I've seen vast quantities of allegedly Fine art that I consider complete garbage or simply uninteresting, and just as much “low” art, “illustration” and “commercial” genre art (in the sense of belonging to the sci-fi, horror, and fantasy genres, not “genre art” as Fine Artists use the term) that inspired me or made me think in ways I previously hadn't. So it should be fairly obvious that I reject outright the notion that the latter isn't every bit as interesting as (or more than) the so-called higher arts..

But in the sense that I typically do art for myself and my own purposes, rather than simply because somebody else wants a particular picture, I consider myself a fine artist. There's more to it than a paycheck (though a paycheck is important, and no artist should be derided simply for that).

I can't say that my work always has a deeper meaning behind it … sometimes it is just about depicting a particular scene or image, or creating something on an aesthetic level; that's part and parcel of the idea of transforming something unreal that I envision into a tangible form. Indeed, I actively resist trying to explain what many pieces are “about”, beyond the general level. I know that meanings are always there and always present, whether I want them or not, but I prefer the viewer to imagine their own narrative, or take away their own interpretation, or call up their own associations, than to bias them with what mine were.

So there you go. I haven't decided whether I will try again next semester. It depends on how much new work I can accomplish in the meantime that doesn't annoy me. Last semester will be literally the last time I could do it without having to stay in undergrad longer (which I doubt is worth the thousands of extra dollars on my loans).

More info when I get a copy of their comments back.

BTW, Allison got in this time, albeit with “resignation” (sic). (I assume that they meant “reservations”, but she said that's what they actually said.)

“Jimmy McKinney stated that his work was informed by his fascination with boundaries. For instance, he liked to contrast things like beauty with the grotesque; reality with unreality; live models with corpses; traditional media and new media. In each case he felt the juxtapositions of such issues provided the provacative nature of his work.”

“The committee's main criticism rested on skill issues. There was very little that could be said about his content, which was praised. The committee felt that more advanced painting techniques such as glazing might be necessary to pull off Jimmy's goals. There also seemed to be drawing issues in his figures especially in proportions.

The Commitee recommended Jimmy look at contemporary artists such as John Currin (more) and Joel-Peter Witkin. Historical figures suggested would be (Francisco) Goya and (Georges de) la Tour. We felt strongly that Jimmy was on the correct track, but would like to see him take larger risks with the form of work he has chosen especially in light of its connections to illustration.”

My comments:
Well, actually I don't literally like to juxtapose corpses and live models. :) It is more accurate to say that I'm interested in the line between life and death … sometimes I contrast the two, sometimes I'm simply at one extreme or the other. The piece that they were commenting on when this came up is one where I drew a model as a decaying zombie-like woman with lower jaw missing and jewlery hanging from the upper jaw. I was in a dark place that day…

Georges de la Tour is in fact one of the artists that I am inspired by and had intended to mention, and Witkin has been mentioned to me by another teacher previously as someone who has a similar mentality to me (I see the similarities, but he takes it in a different direction than I do.).