I won’t lie and say I had great fun with these tasks, the lectures were plenty interesting, but the sheer amount of dread/stress I experienced whenever I was given a new task that I felt I would never complete is comparable only to the time I had to have teeth out at the dentist and they came at my mouth with a needle, with only half as much crying and none of the escape attempts.

I do think it’s important to learn about the art/artists that came before us and the reasons behind art movements especially out of your own personal field of interest, I learnt  (and this may sound naive) that in trying social times art becomes a way for the public to get their opinions out or to escape from the tragedies of life, I always knew that young artists used their art to vent but its a bit more surreal when I see 18 million (rough estimate) pieces of art in the past protesting war and in the present protesting Americas new president or racism and sexism often all three at the same time.
However I don’t think I have need for this in my own art maybe I’m stupid for not being more interested in politics and even if I was I wouldn’t want it to leak into my art for me it would be like seeing a pretty flower with ‘RACISM IS BAD’ stamped on the petals, which honestly sounds like something ‘banksy’ would do, It’s very possible I’ll change my mind one day.
Maybe I haven’t learnt quite as much as I should have art history has never really interested me especially when the art in question doesn’t really appeal to me, apologies to at least half  the art I looked at for these tasks.

If I took anything away from these lectures and into my studio practice I would say, an appreciation of variety. It’s easy to look at a piece of art and say what you don’t like about it but its hard to look at a piece of art (one you specifically don’t like) and say what you like about it/whats objectively good about it past your initial judgement, I think i leaned that lesson trying to critique art ‘in relation to my interests’ that I would never normally look at and give a second thought, I would like to think I’ve taken this developed skill into my crit sessions where I might not necessarily like the art of my peers but I can see the objective good within it.

It’s been a truly enlightening experience, I’m not sure its worth the lessons learned but I enjoyed it for the most part, saying that though if I ever have to do this again I will be sure to keep better time because I expect most of my stress could have been saved doing these tasks at least in the same week I received them and not 3 days before deadline. Boo to me for making my own life hard.