Group Critique! Loved it!

On Friday i had an amazing group tutorial! Loved every minute of it! It was very friendly, open and helpful for me to wrap up my thoughts.

I showed my performance piece that i have done on the board, talking about my mixed emotions towards it and how this piece felt different from the work i have been doing with the table top, although they had some similarities. The performance was more intuitive and less controlled in the way of mark making compared to the table top tryouts. However i still tried to control everything i could control because that is just me. I like to control everything. So Rory decided to give me a challenge to see how i would react when i didn't have time to even think about controlling what i do, So he asked for me to do another performance right there and then! I wasn't prepared for it and was a bit nervous, but at the same time i loved the idea of performing it for people who will share the experience. It was a test for me that i was willing to accept. I have noticed recently that i work well under pressure and that under pressure or when i am nervous, whether it be because people are watching or worry that i will do something wrong - then i produce better work! Work that helps me to understand myself better.

So Rory gave me 5 minutes to do the performance in which throughout i felt nervous but strangely enough they didn't think so. At the start of the performance i started really fast because of my nervousness, making marks quite fast with the charcoal sticks, but after a while i got into my own rhythm which later on when discussed everybody noticed too. I think rhythm helped me to calm down and be in the moment of performing. 

There was a moment in the performance which everybody felt, where i paused because i didn't know which sort of mark i wanted to do next. I knew that everybody noticed and for me that was a moment where again i realized that i am being watched, not only my mark-making but me too as i am part of the work.

So slowly i get more and more interested in performance and how it works for me. I am very happy how this crit turned out and the way all of us bounced ideas off each other. And the way that when contributing to the discussions of the other student i had something to say from my own practice, making links with my own interests and ideas and not just stating something in general.

~Ev