AGG Students Proudly Display Works

The range on the wall

What struck us first when the show was hung was how little it looked like a single class exercise. The work ran the full distance from loose and impressionistic — broken color, visible brushwork, an interest in light more than outline — to carefully observed realism where the drawing carries the piece.

The subjects were just as varied:

• Portraits, where the likeness is only half the battle and the other half is making a face feel like a person
• Landscapes, several of them clearly painted from direct observation, with all the honesty that brings
• Figures, which remain the hardest thing most of us ever attempt
• Farm animals, a subject that rewards patience and a good eye for gesture, and that our part of Arkansas offers in abundance

Seeing them together made the point better than any of us could have made it out loud: these students are not painting to a formula. They're painting toward something of their own.

What a student show is actually for

There's real value in hanging work in a gallery, and it goes beyond the pleasure of seeing your name on a wall label.

Framing a piece forces a decision — this one is finished, and I'm standing behind it. Hanging it next to nine other artists' work teaches you to see your own painting fresh, the way a stranger will. And having it available for sale means somebody might take it home, live with it, and look at it every day. That's a different relationship to your own work than stacking it in a corner of the garage.

Several of our students have made that leap this year, and a few came back from the experience with a noticeably different attitude in class. Braver, mostly.

Thank you

To our ten exhibiting students: thank you for the effort, for showing up week after week, and for taking the risk of putting the work out where people can see it. That last part is harder than it looks.

To Sean, Shirley, Holly, and Clarence: thank you for the hours in the studio and for teaching generously.

And to everyone who came through the gallery during the show, asked questions, and bought a piece — you have no idea what that does for a person who has just started to think of themselves as an artist.