TLDR: I have been painting a lot.

I just finished the Post Bacc program in Painting & Drawing at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). In case you’re wondering why I would need such a program—and to be honest I’m not entirely sure myself—it was a prerequisite, an invigorating setting, and a whirlwind of people and painting. It’s the type of small group setting where the drama unfolds like wildfire and gossip spreads like tea because everything is connected through handmade multi-colored threads spun on the loom from the Fiber department.

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This past year was an exploration of works on paper. I had small paper, large paper, and really large paper. By really large paper—I mean paper that is bigger than me. I also started my chunky painting series. This was a set of small pieces on cradled panel all with some chunk to them. I attempted my double chunky series which was promptly interrupted by my unresolved painting series. The unresolved paintings were a type of dissemble and reassemble, cut and paste, mix-and-match all held together with blue tape. The blue tape is one of those materials that is essential but controversial in critiques.

I will always defend the blue tape.

I decided to take a break after last semester, or an interlude of sorts, which is how I ended up painting bad portraits. Or, let me clarify, really bad portraits. The goal of this series is to (1) always paint from life (2) paint poorly and (3) make it so bad that it’s good. These are the type of paintings where everything is so wrong that it just feels right.

The reason I’m sharing my really bad portrait series with you is that it serves as the perfect setting for my upcoming posts. I will be starting my MFA in Painting & Drawing at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago this fall. Again, you may be asking yourself, does she really need this program? I asked myself the same question, and it came down to the stickiness of the people, threads, and the blue tape. I like it here.

So each week of the semester, I plan to share one really bad portrait (how I feel) along with a post on something about my week in art school (what I did). It could be about an advising session, group critique, studio gossip, or even blue tape. My Substack will be called, “Art School Updates”. The byline is “Spilling the tea on SAIC”. And I hope you will join me.

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