I want to talk about the Ryan Schneider lecture a bit. First of all, I can really see the influences that he mentioned in his paintings: Bonnard, Hockney, Cezanne, Matisse. I also am glad to hear an artist who is successful and much more advanced than I remark that he wants to see more expressionism, less intellectualizing/ reasoning about

every formal decision a painter has made. That validates some feelings that I have had lately at shows or just looking at stuff online. His paintings do invite me to fill in the blanks, as he said he hopes they do. I want to bring all of my own emotional baggage into them to flesh out the characters.My favorites were the outdoors ones he did, I think it's because they remind me less of Matisse or Bonnard; the indoor ones look pretty familiar to me. He talked about how insecure he was with modeling forms and painting the figure when he resumed painting after college, and that gives me hope when I see how successful his paintings are regardless.