I find it strange that we can easily type away and make comments about how to improve things, but when we have to meet at a specific spot to make actual steps in the right direction we can’t commit. I was having surgery that day so I think I’m exempt.

One event we did as a group that I’m still proud of was this low budget art installation at Memorial Park:
http://www.globatron.org/installation/target-practice

I’d love to see more quick, cheap, group building, community awareness projects like this. We should strive to do one monthly I believe. Quarterly at least.

We definitely talk about art enough as a group. It’d be nice to work on a project together in the process.

Kurt is the only person who has responded saying they could make it.

If you are coming shoot an email with the subject Crit Club to

info@globatron.org.

Unfortunately I won’t be able to make it that day due to medical reasons. Dang it. Sorry all.

Dec. 10th at 7:30. Please respond and I’ll pass the list on to Shannon and Ali.

thanks,

Byron

An art professor’s take on art as told to the art writer and artist Peter Plagen.

I’ve been studying the street art scene for a while. Some of the work is really tight, other work not so much so… but what is neat is that they have built thier community heavily on the internet, and the galleries representing such folk appear far more willing to invest in artists well outside thier cities. I think one reason the galleries are more comfortable is because of the extremely tight internet community (these artist come with a built in audience). Some artist have established careers in which galleries play a relatively some part (Sheppard Fairey a successful example).

It intrigues me that one street artist (regardless of age, skill, place in life) can put up a wheatpast in an unnamed alley in whatever city, and a few hours later, 100,000 people see it on the net word wide. Now that’s exposure.

I suppose these folks are taking that path that for three reasons: they are young and don’t know no better, the need for anonymity, and they often live countries apart.

Either way, if it’s all Greek to you, take a look at http://www.woostercollective.com, it’s link to streetsy, http://banksyforum.proboards82.com/, or just Google STENCIL STREET ARTIST GRAFFITI… or artist Swoon, ElbowToe, Armsrock, Herakut, London Police, Logan Hicks, etc.

I’m not proposing to go and glue/spraypaint/stencil up downtown, but these folks got something going for them. After all, I’m blogging about them, they ain’t blogging about me…..

But all we really need is a few photos and a blog post just to continue the dialogue and document that it happened. Either way though.

Thanks Shannon.

But I agree, about any sort of documentation at all, via photos of the work, etc. would need to be done of each one if we are to continue the discussion via the bloggy.

Sure love video though, especially for these types of events.

Shannon- the crit would not have to be video recorded at all. A few photos of the works would be enough. Just some documentation would be needed if the crit is to continue on in the form of a blog with comments for future dialogue. If you don;t want to do that, no big deal. It’s just that we’re having such a good back and fourth here it would perhaps be beneficial to utilize this network in the service of boosting the critical framework.

This could also be a jumping off point for reviewing. The more we familiarize ourselves with various artists, the deeper we can go in interviews and reviews of shows.

I would say that I’m a little intimidated by the idea of the entire crit being on camera. I think it’s important for an artist to hear the rough first impressions people have about their work, and we might miss out on some of that if some people (me included) are concerned about thinking out a well-worded response to a piece because of the presence of the camera. I suppose I could get used to it if it were imortant to other people. But maybe we could do half and half?

I’m so glad we have some interest in the crit group! I think it can become a really valuable tool for all of us.

jd

Let’s not complicate it anymore than it has to be. If you are interested just shoot an email to info@globatron.org with your name
and contact info. That should be enough to get us started. Then maybe I’ll add a link off the sidebar for it in the future.

Put in the subject bar: Crit Club I guess.

Thanks James.

I think it should be a weekend thing or a Friday thing. One fun thing about maybe doing a crit in a small group on a Friday or Saturday, but you could then go out to local shows afterwards. What a good way to 1. meet other artists in the flesh and talk about their work, and have the favor returned, but 2. Show solidarity and support for the artist community.

This is great. This is a step in the right direction. The art community here will do things together (constituting a scene, I gather) if artists become their own booster group. Why does it sound like such an old-school idea? Is this why grand dad was in so many clubs? Because he believed in community? Never really made this connection before but our grandparent’s generation had more people involved in local clubs: Rotary, Elks, Veterans, Garden, Church, Bowling Leagues, etc. And they knew everybody in their town. Why, the answer is so simple. If we want a community then we need to activate the community that is here via a club. But how to prevent it from becoming a clique? Because art cliques turn people off and its already clique-y enough.

I picture a scene like in the beginning of the movie Warriors, with every crit club from every hood representing, but agreeing to the same terms. Then of course there’s the rest of the movie…

The first rule of Crit Club: Tell everybody about Crit Club.