On December 1st, I attended the art workshop for the Mercedes Matter showcase at the Baruch building on 22nd Street. I was looking forward to seeing pieces from various different artists, and was consequently disappointed when the lady there began to speak only of paintings that Mercedes Matter had produced from the early stages of her life onto her late stages. Her paintings became more and more abstract as she got older, going from still-life works to pieces that could have been easily mistaken for a third-grade child’s art class experiment. Objects in the paintings became harder to decipher and her use of color and texture varied as she got older. No one seemed to be enjoying the exhibit all that much, perhaps because we all expected a larger variety of works from different artists. There were folks waiting outside of the building to come in and have a view at the gallery themselves so the workshop was relatively short. We were encouraged to revisit the gallery and, perhaps if I take an art class in the future, I will be compelled to do so.