Drawing Success
We had a visitor to our drawing class on Saturday, Etta, the 84 year old mother of one of our members who was up from New York. I introduced Etta as a famous New York artist and she laughed. At the beginning of class we all sit around a table and talk about our various art explorations. Sometimes people share some of the work they’ve done. Etta said that in her day no one learned art in school. The amazing thing is that she was willing to dive right in with the rest of us and give it a whirl. Go Etta! She was a great inspiration.
We paired off and drew each other this week. At first everyone groaned. We all love drawing things from nature. It’s forgiving for one thing and the results are usually pleasing. But everyone soon jumped in and it was good fun to see the results. I took all the drawings and spread them out on the floor and we had to guess who they were and who the artist was. There were some good laughs. My drawing of Mimi looked like Beethoven.
As the teacher, I am walking a fine line between offering a good time and push, push, pushing. I really don’t care if we draw accurately what’s in front of us. I’m aiming instead that we get to the place of freedom where the constrictions of our minds play less of a part in what we do. That’s why I love explorations and mistakes—they are so interesting. And it’s why the exercise we did this week was a good one. No one has mastery in this kind of drawing.
Speaking of mastery—Connie said she’d been to a conference where a scientist talked about a new theory of intelligence. It used to be thought that we were born with a certain intelligence and then we died with it. In fact, it seems as if we grow our intelligence depending on the things we do all through our lives. The scientist claimed that the ability to make art or music or whatever is not so much inborn as it is a question of the hours we put into it. I’m not sure I agree completely as I’m pretty sure no amount of time would improve my singing but then I’m not compelled to sing. Perhaps that’s it. Anyway, his claim was that 10,000 hours will make anyone an expert at anything. It’s a lot of hours. Singing is definitely out in my case.
I do think we all have an artist within and that it takes different forms. And it is true that we do get better at whatever our chosen practice is with time. But, for me, art is a constant exploration—not something that’s mastered. There are skills that can be developed but it’s a practice really, for me, at least. And I have to say there was a lot of fun in doing the practice this Saturday even when most of us ‘failed’ to capture our subject with any accuracy. The fact that we could laugh was the great success and dear Etta led the charge.
The drawing here is from last week—I’ll try to photograph one of the ‘portraits’ later.
Next weekend I am in an open studios art show. Should be fun. The work is done for it and I dive back into my writing full force. Who knows how many hours I’ve wracked up there but a few more to go and this present project, my novel, The Laughter Club of India / Quebec Division will be done. But now, on this chilly Sunday afternoon in New England, time for a hot cup of tea!
Much excitement on Saturday when I told the drawing class, all of whom had been rejected from the juried art center show, that we would be mounting our own show—Le Salon des Refusés II, in January. When I asked the honchos if we might mount this show I said that I thought it was important that we celebrate both our successes and our failures. The director of the center dropped by and I thanked her for offering us the space for free. She said she was delighted and that ‘it’s going to be a great party.’ So, there you have it—success in failure.
