Box Populi

The alarm goes off, signaling the start of another day at the MAH Fang compound.

Lucky for me, Samy's Camera is right around the corner. Samy's is an excellent source of boxes. I did buy some new boxes, because, well, I was in a hurry and the folks at Samy's were not on my schedule. I'm good now, totally flush with cardboard cubes, rectangles, and hard to find, perfect for packing art-work, sized boxes. 

Fang and I are no longer separate beings. We have merged into a superbeing. He has tethered himself to me, shadowing my every move. Have you ever brushed your teeth with a dog sitting directly beside you? It's a little odd, even for me. 

So why am I blogging as opposed to say, sneaking a stroke in the studio, or packing, you might be asking. Because I am at school giving a test. But you teach drawing, you might be saying. How do you test a drawing? It's called a Student Learning Outcomes Assessment Report. It's also called Why I Don't Believe in Testing, But I Will Comply to Make Everyone Feel Better.

Overall Proportional Frame: 

Measured & Noted. Executed correctly. Frame Included. Very Good. 2 pts. 

Measured & Noted. Executed incorrectly. Frame Included. Good. 1 pt.

Not measured or noted. Frame Missing. Poor.  0 Point.

Etc. 

It's not really about how well they can draw. It's a test so that my colleagues can see how well I can teach a student to draw a circle. When I was told this, I replied that I don't teach my students to draw circles, I teach them how to observe and draw relative proportions and relationships. I stopped short of asking how you teach someone to draw a circle. I think I stopped short, but come to think of it, maybe I did ask that. I was a little grumpy that day. 

Most of my students are drawing these things  (cubes, spheres, cones, cylinders) fairly correctly. Over the years I've seen a weird, odd, if you will, tendency for wide people to err on the side of drawing wide squatty objects, and ectomorphic body types tend to draw things rather elongated, but other than that, everyone is usually within a degree or two of accurate or "correct."

The house painters came today. I chose a new exterior paint. Bison Beige. I picked it from a paint chip. Now I'm freaking out because when I googled it just now it looks more gray than I remember from the paint chip. I know I'm selling the home and therefore should not care, but I do. I loved this house. I want it to have a good life with its new owners. I want it to be happy with its new coat. 

Not much new going on in the studio the last few days. There are at least 2 shows I want to see before they come down- Mark Grotjahn at Blum and Poe, and Kim Dorland at Mark Moore. Whenever I hear Mark Grotjahn's name, I always thinks of a conversation I had with a gallery owner several years ago who told me that someone had told him that Grotjahns' new works in the studio were really bad failures and he didn't get what everyone saw in him. I remember this for 2 reasons: (1) that someone would criticize new works in a studio, calling them failures. (2) because I had that Eureka moment when I realized that even A-list gallery owners make a bad call.

Bedtime. House painter here at 7:30am. I really hope Bison Beige is a winner.