Response: The Crit

I finished my now favorite book in the entire universe, Seven Days in the Art World. In it, the author, Sarah Thornton, talks about a visit she paid to CalArts. She spent time with artist and professor Michael Asher in his notorious crit class. There, chosen graduate students throughout the year bring in their work to be critiqued. Thornton made it out to be the most exhausting and draining event in the world. It did, after all go from 10 am to 1 am.

Today's Advanced Design two hour critique was much quicker (obviously), but I wish we had gotten to spend more time with the pieces. Okay, maybe not four hours, but more than five minutes. I know that many employers won't be spending more than five minutes with some of our work. Still, it's important to get good, thorough evaluations in the beginning. You want to truly understand what people are showing and why, and then you want to be able to tell the person why they should or should not show that work. Does this make sense? It makes sense in my head. Also, I think a lot of evaluations get lost if they're simply scrawled on paper. Plus, the meaning isn't the same as saying it. When it comes to deciding what stays and what goes, it seems like we would want those critiquing to be as clear as possible and not influenced by the 10 minutes we have to "rate" a portfolio.