Donato Giancola invited me to speak to his School of Visual Arts class. As it happened, my friend Dan Dos Santos was also giving a lecture at SVA earlier in the day so we decided to grab a bite between engagements. The best thing about being friends with freelancers is that they use any excuse to get out of the house – even the lame excuse of hanging out with Dan and me — so we soon had a great group of artists at dinner and I had an entourage to go to class with.
I have to say, speaking to students with Boris Vallejo, a man that has been at the top of the field longer than I've been alive, is definitely a "what the hell am I doing up here" moment. Still, I don't think I did too badly. My lecture "style" is to dump a ton of materials onto a table and talk through the process as quickly as I can -- then try to get the kids to ask as many questions as possible. Usually the focus is on marketing themselves, networking, and various other things they are supposed to learn in a professional practices class, but never do. The class had very impressive work on the walls. I was shocked to hear they were just juniors. (I suspect Donato is a great motivator.) If they keep working as hard as they did in that class, they'll do well.
As we were leaving we saw a bunch of students busy hanging their senior exhibit, which opens tonight. I hadn’t planned on going, since I’m already going to a student exhibit on Friday, but seeing some of the work made me think I'll check it out. So, more SVA to come...
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
School of Visual Arts
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7 comments:
Lucky students, I bet they really enjoyed the talk. Its cool that you get opportunities like that and even more cool that you take them. I know that I am always fascinated by the inner workings of the publishing industry and I'm not even in the field. It has to be fantastic for the students.
Cool story, and I have heard Donato speak publicly as well as a private one on one thing , and he is very much inspirational.
I'm little bit jealous on your perfect solidarity friendship. :)
I really like much from Donato and also Boris and Julie there too. It looks like a heaven to me... :)
Hey Irene... I didn't know you had a blog! Cool!
I talked to Donato and Boris at the Comicon a few years ago. Nice guys...
Jeff – Thanks for stopping by! I just checked out your blog -- great stuff. (You can talk about backyard birds anytime, as far as I’m concerned.) I see you have a NY show coming up in September. I’ll be looking forward to that.
Hi Carl – What’s funny is that I was looking at those students wondering just how much info was sinking in. I know when I was a student there were so many things I probably could have taken better advantage of. A young man ran up to my office today to pick up some chromes for Richard Solomon. He was just a freshman and he’s already interning at Solomon’s – that’s some great exposure to the illustration world. And he ran around my office asking questions about all the artwork. I don’t think I had that much wherewithall at that point.
Tracy – Donato really is a very giving speaker --all of his lectures are about process and influence. And he’s always willing to give his time for demos and such. He’s good people, as they say.
Hey Uri – That’s New York. You can’t beat it!
I wish I can be in the New York. I think this is necessary in my life anymore. Least I will try to be there during "Atlantic Avenue Art Walk" at June 9th or 10th...
Here is the link:
http://www.atlanticavenueartwalk.com/
I'll be there first time if I can... I hope it's good enough to go hundreds miles away from home... Least Donato will be there I think. I have checked others; honestly, sorry other folks, just Donato will be there to me actually. :)
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