how we work....

My son was old enough to go to art summer camp this year.  I am not sure who was more excited.  I just found his projects in the craft closet as I was looking for something else; one of which was a bean mosaic on cardboard.  When we were viewing the class work on the last day, there was quite a variety of approaches and styles, and I asked him how he made decisions about his image.  He said, "I just look at it and glue a bean down, then look at it some more and glue some more beans down."  I asked if he had an idea of what he wanted to look like before he started, and he said no, that he just "kind of did it."  It was all I could do not to laugh out loud.  That is exactly the way I work.  It almost always has been.  There hasn't been a sketch for a collage drawing, embroidery or doll in 20 years.  I make it because I want to know what it looks like.  I keep lists of ideas/physical attributes, and then I just start.  Once i have made a decision, that informs the next decision, and so on.  I would probably get myself into a lot less trouble with the work and its installation if I could think things all the way through, but I have yet to change the way I work.  I think that quality of "being there" with the work is important for me.  Apparently it is for my son too.     

look what I found....

I was poking around in some boxes for work I needed to get quick photographs of, when I rediscovered my "Flower Girl."  I had totally forgotten about her.  I pulled her out and put her on the post for a photograph and realized why she had been tucked away...she can't balance on the post as she is too top heavy.  I need to insert some sort of counterbalance in her pelvis, which means making a hole and filling it with something and then closing her up again.  I wish I knew how to think these things through before I made them, but apparently that is not my learning process.  Luckily, I have a very experienced colleague who is kind enough to offer advice.  Looks like she will be going to school tomorrow!

"Flower Girl" 

she's finished!

Just some quick pictures, and not terribly detailed.  But I couldn't wait to get her posted: 

I made the cupcake over a year ago for another doll, and decided not to use it.  Then I decided I wanted her to be sitting on the cupcake like she had just commandeered a mountain.  Let me know if you think there should be more of them. 

and I'm done....

with two new dolls, for my October online exhibition at buysomedamnart.com.  "Candy Thermometer" and "Compass."  I even had my new flex shaft drill out to insert the sleeve in the back.  It was so slick.  I can clamp it right to my table and have it done in minutes.  Here's a quick look:

 "Candy Thermometer"

 "Compass"

Flex shaft magic!

You can see in the above pictures the back post that supports their sitting.  It slides right into the metal sleeve inserted in their back.  All it takes to install them is an 1/8 inch  hole in the wall and the post.  Installation shots will have to happen this weekend.

 I had hoped to get more done, but with rethinking my drawing class and getting everyone back to school, these two were all I could manage.  If I can get my  cupcake girl finished next week, maybe she will be available too.  Will post a link when the exhibition goes live.  

Loosening up...

This last trip to Barnes and Noble was a real success.  Not only did I find a contemporary drawing book which is helping me rethink my Drawing 1 class, but I found another book titled "Drawing and Painting Imaginary Animals" by Carla Sonheim that has me itching to draw.  I'm not afraid to draw. I love drawing and am confident drawing from observation.  I am however, terrified to draw from my own imagination.  That's why I rarely sketch an idea for something....I just make it to see what it looks like.  At some point I decided I am not good at illustrating, although I have never tried.  So this book is full of exercises that will let me play, experiment and explore, without worrying about whether they are right or wrong.  We may even try some of these ideas in my class.  Will post one as soon as I finish....

Making a mark....

Yesterday was our first day of actual drawing in my Drawing 1 class.  It was all about the mark.  The only real direction I gave was to fill the whole page with marks; charcoal marks, graphite marks, pen marks, eraser marks, layered marks.  More will happen next week, but yesterday, I wanted them to make friends with their tools and to discover what felt natural to them without the added pressure of making something look like something.  I am always amazed at the range of responses I get.  I never know who has any experience with drawing or art, and the successful drawings often have nothing to do with prior experience.  Those interesting drawings have more to do with the student's ability to work without fear, or in spite of it.  I learn so much about them by how they attend to this drawing.  I learn which students are willing to go for it, which are willing to make mistakes, and which ones need rules to follow.  This first project, titled "Big Fat Mark Mess," is one of my favorites....I get to learn so much about them that they may not even realize themselves.    

First day....

of Drawing 1 at RCTC.  26 students.  New easels, tables and supplies. We spent the morning reading the syllabus.... hopefully the big art words didn't scare them off. I have spent many years as the teacher, but I still remember my first drawing class at RISD with Michael Yefko.  He smelled like coffee and cigarettes and wore his hair in a ponytail.  It was a seven hour studio once a week.  It was heaven.  He gave us our supply list at the beginning of class, and sent us to the RISD Store to purchase everything.  We had an hour, and the bookstore was the world's best playground.  I bought tools I knew nothing about and had never used.  We came back up to class, and Michael had set up a still life of pots and bones.  We had a 24x36 inch pad of newsprint, and we started drawing.  I had never drawn that big, and it was the smallest size I drew on all year.  We came back the next week to draw the model....another first for me.  I don't remember much about the model, but I remember making a gesture drawing of the model with compressed charcoal and it was a revelation.  I loved gesture drawings.  Longer drawings found me getting fussy and caught up in particulars while I lost sight of the whole.  Gesture drawings were this wonderful process of discovery every single time.  I still think there is nothing more beautiful than that feather-like mark of compressed charcoal swooping across the page.  I hope I can help my students find what excites them about their own drawing.  Discovering my drawing during that freshman year was one of the best moments of my artistic life.    

Re-thinking Drawing.....

So in just a few short weeks I will be teaching my second Drawing 1 class for Rochester Community and Technical College.  I had thought I had the class figured out after ten years, but teaching last spring gave me some things to think about.  Partly it is a different student that I am teaching that requires a different approach....but I think it is more a renewed  personal excitement and sense of possibility with the process of drawing.  I realized in my own drawing that I want more freedom, spontaneity and space for whatever comes, and unfortunately, that process was also absent from my teaching of drawing.  

In a night out at the bookstore, I discovered Drawing Projects: an exploration of the language of drawing.  I am so inspired by this book and can't wait to incorporate many of the exercises in my class.  Drawing with your tool at the end of a long stick....drawing with two pencils taped together...drawing without looking, but instead, feeling your object. These are all ways to be engaged with the process, without focusing on the outcome.  There are beautiful illustrations and thoughtful interviews with contemporary artists.  I am ready to be a student of drawing again!