OKAY. LET'S DO THIS! Oh wait, blog about today.
Got up nice and early. Showered, got to Robin's defense. A packed crowd for the front of the Stevens Annex. All the printers were there. Robin's defense was eloquent, well spoken, concise, and beautiful. She really brought out the time and depth she spent on her works. She did this photo graveure prints based on these graphite drawings of contemplative moments in her parents house. She was so well researched and thought so in depth about it. Ahhh so good. I helped her take it down after. Whipped out my power tool to undo the screws.
Then I headed over to Samala's defense. Her short animation was lovely. She did a wordless (well dialog less) animation about going to nature after the loss of technology. All hand drawn stop motion beauty. She did so good and her parents asked good questions. Not typical parent questions that normally just indicate their lack of knowledge in their offsprings choices. There is a certain decorum and dialog expected at Focus Week.
After that I wolfed down two sandwiches and went to see if my room (815c) was available. Will was in there talking to his panel, so I went and got tacks and supplies to put my show up with. He was still in there so I loitered and talked to Karen. When I packed up my posters in a box and went back to the room, he had gone. Will's work was still up but it only blocked a small part of my set up. I strung a string from one side of the wall to the other and made sure it was level. Much easier than leveling each piece. Then I started tacking the posters up. I organized them in a manner so that the one straight forward facial position piece (Madeline) was in the middle. And the pieces that gradually looked left went to the left, and the ones that went right to the right. It looks really good. I couldn't have been more pleased. I was half way through tacking them up when I realized that I should use a regular thumb tack (not a flat headed one) to start the hole. My thumbs were so happy when I clued into that. And the posters went up much faster. I hauled my studio table down and piled my distribution posters onto it. Looks so good. Simple, not fussy. Just like my work.
I practiced my speech and worked on making the notes for my actual defense (no reading straight from pages allowed). Martin came in straight from James' defense and so I told him to chill for a moment. I got him a single serve ice cream from Safeway and some cups and napkins for snack time tomorrow. Got him the ice cream in thanks for being such an awesome mentor, and also he is at thesis all day everyday. He deserves a treat. We talked a little and then I got into my defense practice. He was pleased with the progression and order of it and how far I've come since last meeting.
I finished committing my words to notes. OH and Will came and took down his piece as well. In talking to people about potential questions that might come up, I've found I've been able to construct good responses.
I practiced from my notes with Samala and Morgaine and noticed there were places where I wasn't clear what my notes were. So I'm going to go through it one more time tonight and get that all sorted for tomorrow. I'm up EARLY! Food! Hair! Clothes! Makeup! Trader Joe's! Practice! Defend!
After years and years, my thesis defense is here.
It doesn't feel real, but it is.
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