First impressions can change
My impression of our studio instructor, Roddy Creedon, has made a 360 degree turn since Monday. Monday’s intensive oral questionnaire drilling (on the readings) was a near death experience for me. When none of us could answer his specific questions about architects briefly mentioned in the articles, he exclaimed with exasperation, “I’m not sure if I want to jump out of the window myself or shove all of you guys out.” I guess it was slightly pathetic of me for not being able to name more than half of the Pritzker Prize winners.
His sarcasm and straightforwardness were intimidating at first, but now his snarky comments are just addictively entertaining. (And everything seems 10x funnier when I’m sleep-deprived, like alcohol-induced humor.) At some point during model critiques, he made a reference to a certain “Tina Palin” and then held up two contrasting models and said, “These two need a Vulcan mind melt.” (Star Trek reference.) When one girl completely changed her montage design, he said, “You took your baby and then you killed it on a Wednesday morning!” While one guy was explaining how M.C. Escher inspired his montage, Creedon remarked, “Everyone thinks Escher is cool when you’re sixteen and you smoke dope.” How can you not like this guy?!
Creedon does give helpful comments though. He really wants us to learn how not to bullshit our way through reviews, so for once, I feel like I’m actually learning in class. I mentioned how he cut me off for saying “I wanted…” last time. This time, he cut someone else off for saying, “I liked…”—“Hold on, stop. I don’t care what you like, does anyone else here care what this guy likes? Tell me what you think is successful and why.” When another guy was explaining how his red lines represented infinity, Creedon responded, “Infinity is not interested in you representing him or her.” He explained, undergraduates have a problem with trying to justify their projects with what they say. “What I’m supposed to understand about your project should all be evident in what I can see. You can’t legitimize a project by explaining it away.” It’s so true—we probably all sounded like retards talking about what we wanted for our projects, what we liked about them, and how they represented abstract concepts in really obscure ways. No wonder we always get torn apart by grad students during reviews.
I might also add that he dubbed a bifurcating line a “Serena moment” because I had this one unsuccessful anomaly in the middle of my montage. So much for first impressions, lol.
Breaking down ego walls
“See, the reason why I don’t like saying something is good is because then you won’t change it. You’re suddenly in this mind block thinking because it’s good, I can’t change it.”
Because Creedon has proved that he really does want to help us and has said that he isn’t going to say what’s good (but rather how we can improve), I have no walls to hide behind. I don’t have to worry about looking “bad” in front of the fourteen other studiomates—we all get equal doses of Creedon criticism sprinkled with sarcastic humor.
During our model critiques, we had to select models to go on the “danger table”. More than half (including mine) ended up on the Hall of Shame—but there was no shame. For the first time, I actually laughed when he exclaimed, “Serena, I honestly don’t know how you can create that montage and then such a crappy model.”
Never fear, just try
A few hours prior to studio, I had a minor break down because I was still on my first model (out of three assigned). I had not yet done my montage—and I was seriously considering not showing up to class—but that was probably the silliest mindset I could’ve been in then. In the end, I still had only one model, and I didn’t get slaughtered for it. Having something is better than having nothing, and trying is better than giving up and hiding.
