Artwala Road

Our Saturday morning drawing class has been invited to participate in the The Arsenal Center for the Arts summer theme exhibition— What’s Your Story? As I mentioned last time we are starting with art pieces based on the word shoe and on Saturday we shared stories.

Mine is—When I was nine I had the awful realization that apart from the queen of England everyone important in the world at large was a man—Jesus, the Prime Minister of Canada, Elvis Presley. I had faint hopes that Prince Charles might cast his eye my way but it took a great deal to imagine that as he was in England and I was in Canada and I was already schooled in the rules of monarchy. Then Elvis came out with his song, Blue Suede Shoes, and I convinced my mother to buy me a pair. I really hoped, that with the right shoes, I would be important too.

The other stories were fabulous—a young girl realizing her feet were as big as her mother’s; a grandmother, whose granddaughter is far away, thinking of shoes she bought the little girl and missing her; a young Jewish girl begging her disapproving mother for yellow shoes then being asked by a stranger in front of her mother if they were her Easter shoes. Little snippets of life that say so much.

Now we imagine how we might create visual images to accompany these stories.  The way we create the art piece will say a lot about where we are now in relation to the story. I expect that each artist will create a piece based on things that they like to do.  Some like to paint, others use fabric, others like to make three-dimensional things.  The choice of medium will speak to the story, for sure.

As wondrous as each piece will doubtless be they will be especially evocative when hung together. It’s so liberating to step forward and speak your truth and fun to step forward with our fellow travelers.  No blue suede shoes necessary!

January 27th, 2008 | Category: Drawing Club | Leave a comment

On Saturday we started up again with the drawing class. I think of it as a club because most of the members have been together now for nearly two years. Of course, it was great to see everyone but also a challenge for me, the teacher, to create new experiences that give us all the opportunity to grow and shine. Art is not just about skills, I say, it’s about connection to spirit! We’re trying to get out of our own way.

We’ve been invited to participate in the Arsenal Center for the Arts summer exhibition—”What Is Your Story?” I’m thrilled about this because we are a group of women over the age of forty and we have stories! And every time we tell them we get a little closer to connecting with our spirits, to peeling off a layer of dross and stepping forward just as we are.

Many of our members are coming to art after raising children and in the midst of busy and successful careers. There is such a yearning to create and explore that gets squashed in ‘real’ life, so we gather every Saturday morning and draw. One new member expressed a vague concern that I don’t teach things like perspective or shading. The thing is I don’t know much about them even after making my living at art for twenty-five years. I tell them it’s why I was able to succeed—it was my own hand that was evident, the one I was given, and I didn’t have any sense that I ought to be anything other than I was. I never went to art school so was spared expectations. (There are advantages to going to art school but challenges too.) Even when our own hands are shaky or naive, they have such amazing beauty in them. No one really wants to study perspective—that’s what we have cameras for!

Our first story project will be around the subject of shoes. I felt we had to have somewhere to start. Why not the feet? The ground. Those humble slips of leather that carry us here and there. Those things we hunt for and pay big bucks for, that we sometimes feel pride in sticking one foot forward. Those things that pinch and give us blisters and make our feet ache when we’ve chosen the wrong pair. Everyone has a story about shoes. So next Saturday they’re all to bring in a few sentences about a pair of shoes in their lives in preparation to conceiving an art piece to bring the story into this world like a mother births a baby. Stay tuned.

So, for our first class I decided that what we really needed was to just make a mess, just take some big white paper and make a mess—throw our anger and frustration down on the page or our confusion, scribble, rip, spill, cut. I said now’s our chance to not be polite, to not be good. Let’s be BAD!!! I thought we’d do this for an hour then move on to actually draw something for the next two hours. But everyone became so deeply engrossed in this that we never moved on. Bit by bit the messes became more subdued, more peaceful, as everyone lost themselves in what they were doing. Very, very interesting, Watson.

January 23rd, 2008 | Category: Drawing Club | Comments (4)

Yesterday we held Le Salon des Refusés at the Arsenal Center for the Arts in Watertown, a stone’s throw from Boston and Cambridge. And, hooray, it was a great success! When we first set up it felt a bit lonely and we wondered if anyone would come. It was so informal—we had no idea even how many artists would show. But show they did! And so did the crowd—much to our amazement.

About thirteen artists hung their work in the space of an hour before we opened the doors to the public. The next two hours—a steady stream of people, friends, people popping in from the theater next door at intermission, fellow artists. I think we had well over one hundred people. It gave us the idea to do an informal show like this every once in a while. It took minimal effort—we cleared the space out the day before, bought some wine and cheese and hung the art. Of course, the space is great!

Someone else said to me—This is theater! It was a fabulous collision of people and energies, chance meetings, inspiration, a look at art and art talk. Just seeing what other people are doing gives us ideas. One friend was showing work for the first time—a real thrill. It’s always great to see friends who’ve taken time out of their Sunday to show up. And thanks to those who were there in spirit! No one sold work but that was not the point. We stirred the energy and that’s a good thing.

As for the art? Splendid, splendid! We’re so beyond judgment—an art in itself! So there! Edouard Manet would be proud, I’m quite sure. And we made sure of this by putting up a poster of Le Dejeuner sur L’herbes. Le Salon is, after all, a tribute to him as well as to ourselves. Let’s just say he’s our inspiration and though our efforts were not so radical as his or so serious—we are marching forward with heads high!

Allan got a chance to hand out flyers for his book,Stories We Need To Know, and to announce his book launch party which will take place in the same space. It also gave us a chance to show the center to friends who came over from Cambridge and other towns around.

January 21st, 2008 | Category: Dear Reader | Comments (1)

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January 18th, 2008 | Category: Dear Reader | Comments (1)