Notes from a Critical Feedback Workshop

14 x 11 encaustic L Pressman

Last year at the Second National Encaustic Painting Conference I was selected to participate with 9 other artists in a Critical Feedback Workshop given by Kay Walkingstick.It was a full day of looking at our work and discussing it as a group and privately with Kay.

Here is a compiled list of questions and comments that Kay made that day: All worth asking, thinking, discussing,and arguing about..............

1. Do you spend at least a couple of hours in the studio every day?
2. What is your goal for your art career? (Have your work shown in a
museum, pay your bills and feed your family or somewhere in between —
it’s all valid)
3. What are you looking for when you go to look at art? Does your work
fulfill that need?
4. Who is your favorite artist and what do you expect their art to do
for you?
5. What subject do you want to investigate?
6. How to do conceptualize your work? How do you begin (through color,
image, idea)?
7. How are your pieces related to one another, if at all?
8. What symbolism are you trying to convey?
9. Who is your audience? What do you want your audience to see?
10.What does surface signify? Does it carry meaning?
11.Do you fully understand and know what you are doing?

Draw every day, natural things that interest you.
Collect stimulus, draw them. Focus, find out as much as you can.
Stimulate yourself. Journal what you love, what you hate, what's in your
head, what's important. Journaling organizes your thoughts; allows you
to see things in concrete way that otherwise you might not see.

Focus on what you think you need to find in your art.

Art can be close to the bone, but we are not our work. Try not to
identify your core ego with your art.

On Preciousness: Get rid of your little darlings......
"Destroy your duds"...said by someone else.

Real success is making art all your life.

Don't be afraid of expressing what you really mean in your art, what
you really feel. Say it visually, as strongly as you can. Push as far a
reach as you can, then go all the way!

Avoid methodology. If what you're doing is about technique, that's not art.

I expect of abstraction as much as what imagery does for me...to carry meaning.

Art has to be incredibly layered. Symbols, signifiers...layers that
relate. Combine signifiers with more abstract notions. Push! Vary lines.

"Ya wanna be an artist? Make art!"

Tell the viewer something that they need to know.


It is important to know:

1) You are OK just the way you are. You need a strong stomach, a tough
hide, and to be able to take rejection well.

2) Do your homework. Check out galleries. Don't just walk in with your
work. Be as professional as you can.

3)....there is a gallery for everybody."

"Be of good cheer, miracles do happen."

Kay Walkingstick


14 x 11 encaustic 2009 L Pressman