TV! Work of Art

Oh, I loved this week's challenge on Bravo's Work of Art: Take a childhood experience or memory that helped to form the artist you are today, and make a piece of art inspired by that experience or memory. Then, the artistestants were taken to the Children's Museum, and had to use kids' art materials to make their pieces. A lot of the artists had trouble with this. Some thought the assignment implied that they should create childish stuff (Abdi, Ryan, Mark). Some were completely baffled by the materials and just went blank and created dull, lifeless work because they couldn't be naked (Jaclyn). And some decided that they didn't have to address the challenge at all, and instead remade a piece they had already created and admitted it (Miles, faux OCD guy, bah). I find it amusing that everyone on the show is as annoyed by Miles as I am, and I firmly believe he'll probably end up taking the entire shebang with his fake tortured artist crap act. Ah, well.

Your winner was Peregrine, who created a warped My Little Pony Universe, full of drugs, candy and cigarettes. Peregrine was raised in a hippie art commune in California, and a lot of the people she grew up with are no longer with us. While she seemed to love her childhood memories, there was a cheery and bright sadness to her piece that I absolutlely adored. Like the morning after mess from a great party of unicorns and drag queens.

Our loser this week was Ryan. Now, I haven't been a big fan of Ryan's work on the show, but I really like Ryan as a person. He tried to explore some heavy emotional topics (his relationship with his mother) while working on this challenge, but he was unable, with the time and materials constraints, to get a good piece of art out of it. He's a creative, fun fellow, and I think the group will miss him. Plus, look how cute he is. Seriously. Sometimes, I have reality TV crushes, and Ryan just has that sweet young art school guy preciousness all over him. Sigh. I'm still rooting for the sincere and talented Abdi for the win.