This weekend I graduated college.

My dad flew out from California and over the course of two and half days, I gave him a grand tour of Provo, Utah. My dad, in true parental fashion, listened as I talked his ear off, and snapped who knows how many pictures of me in Provo, and most importantly me in my cap and gown.

I could get really sappy but I don't think graduation will really feel real until I leave Provo for good. As anxious as I am to leave this town, it's still been my home for the last five years, and there are surely people and places that I'll miss.

Now that my undergraduate career is over, I'm looking forward to graduate school. I'm waiting to hear back from one more school before I make my final decision, but the one thing I do know is that I will studying for a Masters in Statistics in Europe this Fall. Crazy.

As for my art, some of you may know that I officially finished the underpainting phase of my Dream of St. Joseph, but this weekend, I also finished the underpainting portion of Bouguereau's "Little Girl."

The next step is color. I've spent a great deal of time mixing and tubing colors so I can have fresh paint every time I work. Every artist knows that there's nothing quite like painting with fresh paint.

It's the little things that will now make the difference between a good painting and a great painting. This summer I'll be working hard in the studio, but I'll also be doing some hardcore reading. Thanks to finals week, I have stacks of used books on the craft, on the history of the craft, on the art market, waiting to be read.

Years ago, an old friend asked me what I was passionate about. I told him about all the subjects I was interested in learning, and all the ideas I wish I knew. He told me, "that's not passion." He said that when you're passionate about something, you can't keep the information away from you. Everywhere you look there's more knowledge to get your hands on. I don't even think he remembers this conversation, but I've though a lot about it over this last year.

Anyway, I'm rambling a little. Happy summer everyone.

Love \\ Christelle

Certified Copy

I watched a brilliant film in my French and Italian cinema class this week called Copie Conforme or Certified Copy. It follows a man and a woman through the Italian countryside and we watch as James, the celebrated author and the unnamed single mother develop a rather peculiar relationship.

What piqued my interest most, besides the heart wrenching storyline (my summary does the film no justice by the way), was James' initial lecture. James, an author, is on a book tour where he argues that there is value in the copy of a work in that it leads us to the original, therein certifying the value of the archetypal piece. He says that we associate the word "original" with the authentic, the genuine, the reliable in such a way that it possesses tangible intrinsic value, and that really what matters is what you believe about the piece. If you believe it's an original, that's what counts. Say the original piece was completely destroyed and the copy was all we knew of it. Would that work of art be any less valuable?

I was taken by the film (spoiler alert, kind of). Though our two protagonists began as strangers, they spent the second half of the film working out their relationship as an old unhappily married couple. I almost walked out because their heartbreaking portrayal of two people who just can't seem to make it work, cut me. When the movie ended I was left wondering whether they really were strangers or if they truly were that unhappily married. Now I ask myself if it matters.

Thanks to Google and a lovely blogger, I know that this is
what I can expect to see. 

Prints of original masterpieces are marked up from the amount of money it takes to produce it. We don't typically mistake prints as originals and we are usually only moved to the point that it points us to the original.

So how much are my reproductions worth? Few outside the art community have heard of Anton Mengs, what is the value of my painting to them? What is it worth to those who can't make it to Vienna to see the original? Am I arrogant enough to propose that seeing my painting could elicit the same power as seeing the original in person?

I hadn't heard of this painting before I began working on it, but I have learned the most from reproducing this painting than any other work of art I've undertaken. I still know very little about its history, and I assume that the painting hanging in the Kunsthistorisches is the one painted by the hand of Anton Mengs. Even if it wasn't, I know what it would mean to me to see what I'd believed to be original in person.

Frankly, I think I'd cry.

Love \\ Christelle