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Open studio non interference mandate!
I have always had a hard time in open studio when I feel the people around me begin suggesting the "right" way to do things. The Artist's School is just that. A school for artists, more workshops and one week introductions than actual instruction. One week you will have a teacher tell you that you work in glazes, begin bottom up and the next it is all alla prima! The sophisticated artist with their legs under them, know they are learning the skills that an individual artist has developed from their own experience, not the hard and fast rules.
Unsolicited corrections in my own case have tended to be based on whatever the student last heard in a workshop and may or may not even be relevant to the situation.
I would have gladly jumped in and given her my opinion if she were ASKING me for it. But in open studio, I try hard to do unto others what I expect for myself. That is, an opportunity to work out things on my own. If I ask another artist for an opinion, it is what I need, but even in my own case, I have gotten completely flummoxed by a friend explaining I should carry a "path from the face into the ear". Someone once told her that. I labored for months trying to see where I had lost my way on that path, until I realized she didn't understand the concept and I had been doing it just fine.
When I was shakey in my skills, I really got shakier unless the advice was given from an individual that could demonstrate the results in their own work.
Another woman in the group mentioned that she should be very good by now. She had studied so many workshops and said the only good work she had done was in Anthony Ryders workshop! With those credentials, she SHOULD have been looking great! But it was apparent that her work was a workshop after workshop hit or miss patchwork with no strong basic instruction. Her gripe was that all her teachers kepts saying "PUT THAT PAINT ON THERE" to be bold and don't hold back. Well she had mud. It was apparent that color mixing on the palette was skipped either in her perception or in the instruction.
I feel really strongly, that open studio is where we get to practice and perfect. Anyone who were to ask, would get hours of my opinions, but unless they ASK, I pipe up.
(Can you tell you struck a nerve?)
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