It’s getting serious, so it was time for a road trip to get our surviving art prodigies out of the city to reconnect with small-town life. Destination: Cold Spring, NY. It was never explained why the producers chose Cold Spring for the challenge of finding a stranger to act as the subject of a portrait.

Whenever you hear terms like portrait or landscape tossed around as the basis for an art challenge, you should be afraid as a contestant. Portraiture is one of the oldest forms of art, so the real challenge is making it seem fresh. The five remaining artists took very different stylistic approaches on this one and ended up giving us perfect examples of who they are as artists.

Kymia managed to create something in a rather traditional approach of a straight painting on canvas while using the variations on that approach to capture her subjects.

Bob and Barbara First Date, 1980 looks like a glimpse into a carnival of kitsch. Her brilliant positioning of the top of the music box at the bottom of the painting just above the actual music box, drawing reality out of the painting, gave substance to something that could be seen, as Richard Philips pointed out, as cartoonish. She earned her win and has been one of the most consistent throughout the competition.

Everyone else had issues. Young’s art is cerebral, so the fact that his piece was more about how to present and structure a piece than about giving a sense of his subject was expected. We got another overwrought and over- thought work.

His careful arranging of the elements of the piece actually weakened its impact. Jerry Saltz made his most incisive comment of the season when he said that Young tends to try to control the viewer’s experience by making all the decision about what and how a piece should be perceived. By doing that, he limits the impressions a viewer may have. It’s almost as if the viewer is superfluous to the process. Maybe it’s because Young has primarily worked in a medium (photography) that is all about controlling what a viewer sees. Whatever the reason, Young is robbing his work of deeper meaning that will have to be there if he’s expecting to win.

The judges’s critique of Dusty’s piece, Sweet Mairead, as something they’ve seen before was odd to me. It’s like telling Annie Liebovitz that all of her pieces are repetitive because they’re photographs. He used candy pieces to create a mosaic of his subject. How is that the same as using crayons for his self-portrait? And the comment that Sweet was similar to his self-portrait from the first challenge was simply ridiculous.

With or without pieces falling off, I loved the fragility of Dusty’s piece. The piece worked not only as a portrait but as a metaphor for the ephemeral nature of childhood and even happiness itself. I want to see a series of these in which Dusty chooses a different medium based on his subject.

Sara’s Jackie Faloon, 58 Years of Service, worked aesthetically but not as a portrait. The visual separation of the piece into two divergent parts failed to unify into a cohesive message about its subject. But Sara has proved to be a versatile artist in terms of technique and medium and that, more than anything to do with this individual piece, was why she made it into the final three. She has also come on strong late in the competition with her strongest pieces coming in the last few episodes (unlike Young who arguably peaked a few episodes ago).

Lola, once again, tried to give us everything in hopes that we wouldn’t notice the parts that don’t work. Her idea of an abstract portrait was a good one, but she abandoned it as soon as she put up a photograph of her subjects. And the letter! More writing! Really?

Lola’s exit was a given. Even though the producers tried to maximize the drama by eliminating her after Dusty, there was never any question that she was not going to the finale.

My personal choice for the final three (from this group) would have been Kymia, Sara, and Dusty. I think Young – although he’s been the judges’ favorite for a while and there was never any question about his being in the finale – has given us all we are going to see. I think he is incapable of imbuing his art with any emotional depth. I am curious, however, to see what he comes up with for the finale and to see if he can prove me wrong.

So, Lola, it was about time. You know it; I know it; we all know it. I will say that you definitely have talent but just need to find some creative vision to drive it.

And Dusty. I’m bummed. You’ve surprised me and moved me with your art (including Sweet) and I truly hope to see much more from you.

Good luck to you both!