Lesson Info
6. love (the assignment)
Lessons
Look at Me
1seen, heard, loved
08:35 2knowing your butt
06:07 3why we're here
05:55 4your work is a gift
04:45 5a song to sing
03:31Love
6love (the assignment)
07:42love (the crit)
28:49Always the Other
8the ass divot
01:48 9like tarantino
04:30 10always the other (the assignment)
12:06 11the cliche
11:12 12always the other (the crit)
45:13Explodes in the Brain
13Explodes in the Brain
30:32Big Nothing Little Nothing
14big nothing little nothing (the assignment)
01:54 15don't fall in love
04:35 16big nothing little nothing (the crit)
53:23There Ain't No Rules
17ain't no rules
01:16 18yesterday, today, tomorrow
08:33Allow Freedom
19allow freedom
01:41 20show & tell
22:29Born (wildly) Creative
21born (wildly) creative
01:48Subscriber Bonus Lessons
22do the work
34:35 23show & tell (part 2)
16:04Lesson Info
love (the assignment)
For me as an instructor, as a teacher, as a guide, as a guru, whatever you wanna call it. Um For me going through the Critz the, the best part, the best part is we're hammering through this and I can see that these, I know these assignments are hard and I can see the students struggling like uh and the words get all jumbled in their heads and they're trying to, they're trying to pull from in here and they're trying to get it out and what happened? It, that's so beautiful is what I call scheduled epiphanies. We have these moments, uh these moments where you see them, uh their eyes light up and well, I'll, I'll cover a piece of theirs and say, well, does it say I'll cover half of their work and say, well, does it say the same thing? And they're like, oh yes. And they realize that they don't even need all this other stuff that they've added to the, to the, to the work. They can pare it down, they could make it more simple and it will have more meaning because you involve the reader more i...
n solving uh uh your story or your riddle. Right. So there's these wonderful aha moments when you see their eyes light up and they go, oh, I get it. And what they're realizing is that is, is the, is their own power that they have and their own freedom, their own freedom to express and they, they, they're unlearning so much of what's just been piled up since they were in their teens and all the lessons and all the rules and all the, they no longer have to ask for permission and they're like, oh, I can just do this and I could possibly get paid for it. That's fucking awesome. OK. So the assignment is called, was called Show Me Love, right? You didn't have nearly enough time. There's really not enough time, you know, uh when I, when I was teaching at the School of Visual Arts, there were two semesters and I would tell them not enough time you guys had, you know, a couple days or, you know, the next assignments are gonna be, could you go overnight? Still not enough time? But what we're gonna do is we're gonna go through each one of your works and we're gonna um explore what you wanna say and how to get there and how to be particular and how to drill down and find out um um your opinion on this subject, this clumsy, ugly um amorphous, constantly changing in our lives hourly in our lives. This idea of love and what it is and then how to, how to, how to depict it in, you know, in, in two dimensions on paper. And I wanted through this process, I want to show you that we can get to some really meaningful places and we can, we can start um divulging ourselves completely and being and, and, and making ourselves completely vulnerable because we know, we know that the story we're telling is everybody's story. We're not special. We're not unique, we're human beings and we have all this shared humanity. So you guys have gone through, done this work and now we're gonna go through one by one and you guys have an opportunity to hear what the other, um, what, uh, what the other guests are, how they read, how they read these, these, these, this, this, um, this trail you've left behind. It's like, I'm taking you out into the woods and it snowed last night and we're walking out in the woods and I'm like, oh, look, and you see, you see some tracks in the snow and they're like, they're like, uh, um, they're like little, little tracks like this. We find, we find these in the snow, right? And I say, and I say, oh my God, let's go back to the cabin and get our shotgun. I'm so afraid there's a bear in the woods, right? But because we, because we're familiar with seeing these certain marks. We go, oh, no, James. It's ok, we know it's a, we know a bird has been here. We know that we know how recently they've been in because it's snowing. Right. And we know which direction it's gone too. We can, we can, we can surmise these by the marks it left behind and you were in the same situation, you've left these marks behind for other people to read them and you want them to be able to go, oh, they went in that direction? Oh That's what they're trying to tell me. Oh, that's fucking beautiful. Okay. Cool. Now, here's the funny thing. The reason that love is the first assignment is because it's a head fake because it's a trick. It's a trap quite frankly, a trap because love or show me love as the assignment is called, is the most clumsy ugliest cliche, practically meaningless, right? We say it all the time. Hey, I love your shoes, right? You know, you're gonna elope and marry your shoes. No. Right. We just, we use it all the time. You know, this thing that little sucker, you know, we see it all the time. Oops, we see it all the time. But how can we make, how can we make a statement that has real meaning for somebody? How can we get to the pathos? How can we get to the intimate? How can we get to the particular? Right? And uh and, and it's funny because I think what, what happens in this process is, is at some point, um, you're gonna go, yeah, I was gonna say that James, but if it's that particular to me, how is it going to have meaning for somebody else? And right now I say, don't worry about that, let's just get through, let's get, let's get there and see what happens. Right. So the process I usually use with, with, with, with school is that we, um, um, the students would come up and they would put their work on the wall and um, they're not really supposed to know who did what? So I don't have you sign them usually, like the book says, you know, artists sign their work, there's no signing it. Um, and I'll just pick somebody and I'll say, you know, Sonia start us off and you will pick something to talk about, not yours, but something to one of them, one of them to talk about because you're because you think, you know what it means because you don't know what it means because it's interesting because it's confusing because it's, you know, seems right or seems wrong. So, what we'll do is we'll just start that way and I'll say Sonia, what do you know, let's pick something to talk about and we'll, you know, let's see what happens. And the thing is the thing that's nice is say when it's, when you, when it's your turn and we're talking about your work, we're talking about your work and you get to hear these outside perspectives, right? What they, what we, what we perceive because what's going to happen is you guys have this probably this beautiful idea in your head and to get that out on paper, out in two dimensions is difficult. And what happens is often this uh kind of like in a, in a, in a camera, this kind of focus, getting that, getting those things to line up what you say and what you show, right? It's not impossible. It's completely doable, but it takes this kind of intellectual process to find that.
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Class Materials
Ratings and Reviews
Richard Lynch
I really enjoyed the frank style that the class was delivered. Jealous of the 4 students who were in person. I work as an Aerospace engineer and am trying to find a way to relearn to be creative. This class and the exercises made me think and I have noticed that I enjoy taking different perspectives during boring meetings and drawing doodles that make me smile. Unexpectedly, my coworkers have said my work has improved lately. I think because I have become more open to possibilities outside of the tried and true.
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