My first year of grad school at San Francisco Art Institute happened to be Renee Green’s last year as Dean of Graduate Studies. One day while I was waiting for a class that Renee was teaching to start, she and I got to talking about the press surrounding her exhibition at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. I remember she started laughing when I mentioned I saw her headshot in the paper. She said that back in the day, artists weren’t required to provide an image of their face to accompany the artwork. I slumped in my chair for the rest of that class thinking about whether artists today had any new responsibilities like that to deal with.
After class ended, I remember walking to my studio and texting a friend, “damn, we’re so lucky that we can just focus on our artwork and not worry about anything else.” He texted back, “hell yeah, oh hey, check out this new watercolor I’m working on.” He sent me an iPhone pic and I texted back, “it’s awesome,” but I thought it looked too purple, so I added, “maybe some more green or black.” He texted back, “oh yeah, good tip.”
Google image search results for "iPhone," from kottke.org.
I remembering sitting in my studio trying to come up with a plan of action for a great studio day. I grabbed my laptop from my backpack to turn on some music and I quickly logged on to Facebook to update my status with “studio day.” My classmate in a studio down the hall just uploaded a new picture of a drawing he was working on, so I commented “you’re almost there!” and immediately he responded, “I know!” to which I immediately responded, “are you in your studio now?” to which he immediately responded, “yeah, are you here?” to which I immediately responded, “yeah, I’ll come visit after I do some work” to which someone I didn’t know responded, “wow that looks amazing – ur so talented.”
Someone updated their status with a link to an article about Renee’s show that I hadn’t read yet, so I remember clicking on it and re-sharing it with all my Facebook friends and Twitter followers. A prominent Bay Area arts journalist tweeted the same article so a few people that I follow were now tweeting about Renee. I was about to jump into the conversation but I saw another tweet about an art competition for grad students so I clicked on the link to check out the call.
The call for submissions was normal, so I clicked around my laptop to gather the proper images. I remember texting my friend to ask if he was submitting to the competition, and he texted back that he was going to as soon as he finished working on his drawing. I e-mailed my material to the competition and I went back on to Twitter but I missed my chance to join the Renee conversation, so instead I went on my own blog to write my thoughts on Renee’s show.
Google image search results for "call for submissions," from theonlyshape.com.
While I was blogging, I remember glancing at my short bio in the right-hand column of my blog and not being happy with it. I realized this is the same bio as the one on my website, so I surfed on to my website to change my bio. After changing my bio, I reread my artist’s statement and realized that that, too, was weird, so I sat in my studio trying to rework my statement. Since I was updating my statement, I decided to update my CV with the upcoming student-gallery shows I was having that semester. After I updated my CV, I remember that I had documentation of an artwork from a previous crit that I had yet to upload to my website. I edited the documentation pics in Photoshop and put them on my website. I tweeted that everyone should take a look at my new work. Then I linked to my website on Facebook and I immediately got five Likes and one comment, “whoa looks sweet.”
On my way out of the grad building, I remember that I forgot to stop by my friend’s studio, but I didn’t want to climb back up the stairs, so I texted him that I had a really long day and that I was on my way home. He said, “cool, my drawing is totally coming along!” to which I responded, “hell yeah, can’t wait to see it, send me pics later.” On the bus, I smiled because I had such a productive studio day and I remember thinking that I’m so happy to live in a time when I can just be in my studio and really focus on my art.
