In ECA, there is a method of critique used called “The Triads”. What is involved in the triads is that there are three students and a professor. Two of these students are first year MFA and the third is in his or her second year of their MFA. The first student talks about their work for ten or fifteen minutes straight without interruption about their work: what they have done, what they are doing, what they will be doing, why they are doing these things, and what their issues are. After they are done talking, the listener talks for the same amount of time. They say what they heard, what they think some of the issues might be, and how to possibly solve these issues. Finally the third student who is “observing” these “talkers” and “listeners” just describes what happened between the two without opinion within five minutes.
Although, I have to admit some insight can come out of this method of critique, I find that it is far less useful than other methods. It is far too rigid and unnerving. It is easy enough to talk about your work and what you are trying to accomplish and feel what you are have having issues with, but to rely solely on one other individual who most likely has an extremely different opinion on what art should be altogether is a detriment to the artists needing feedback. It is also, in my opinion, far too difficult on the listener to be forced to help the artists who might be on a completely different wavelength.
My preferred critique is with a group of different artists who might be using a similar medium or completely different medium. This allows people to ask questions about the work that the artists might not have explained well in the first place (being that most artists have a hard time verbalizing things anyway). In this way, ideas can be popcorned and molded into actually helping the artists instead of further confusing them, which has been my experience so far in the triads.
Today, my triad involved an illustrative artist who mainly drew his pieces on flat surfaces, an installation/sculpting artist, and me who is a painter/videographer, three very diverse artists. I personally have nothing against different artists with different backgrounds giving critiques on each other’s work in fact I prefer it. However this strict one on one view makes it far more difficult, especially if the other artist likes nothing of what you’re doing, which can and does happen. I believe that if ECA feels that it has to have the triads as apart of the critiquing process then by all means, let it. But I cannot believe that is the only way to critique an artist and his or her work.
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