Artwala Road

If it wasn’t pouring rain today (again) and far too chilly for June I would be down at The Commander’s Mansion taking snapshots to post of the gorgeous terrace on which The Saturday Morning Ladies Drawing Club and I sat to draw this past weekend. Photos will follow soon but suffice it to say our last class for the season was held outdoors and we attempted to draw the landscape around us.

The Arts Center where the Club usually meets is on an old army arsenal surrounded by sumptuous park land in the back and a beautifully restored mansion where once The Commander of Something lived. You can now rent it for various functions. The ladies met me at the front door to the arts center and one or two were indisposed to outdoor activity this Saturday morning, one a tad tired, the other with a twisted knee. We explored the idea of cancelling our outdoor mission but all the rooms in the center had been taken over by another group of ladies and their quilts which now hung from every conceivable wall. So there was nothing for it but to carry on—so often the case in art.

I put the top down on my wee Miata. Dear A found it for me when my ancient Mercedes had to be sold for a pittance when it failed a few exhaust tests. I specified that I wanted my next car to be cheap, small, fuel-efficient and not black or grey—’something sporty.’ That last phrase went too far. I said nothing about topless but the chaps do like a cheap vintage red sports car. I’ve grown rather fond of it myself and with the top down the ladies were able to pile their portfolio bags into the passenger seat and I was able to drive our ’supplies’ over to the Mansion while the ladies proceeded on foot unencumbered by luggage which made them very happy.

I’d not scoped things out first. I tend to just wing it on such matters as this (and most others too). What a usprise then when I pulled up in the Miata and was met by a circle of black ladies executing some sort of loud cheering routine by the front door. So early in the morning with the grass still wet with dew. I immediately swung around the back to discover another surprise—a grand field complete with two huge and wondrous grape arbors. (Photos to follow in a day or two.) I decided to walk through one, a magical experience, and when I exited the other side the ladies were just arriving on the edge of the field. I shouted out that we were in England because it so had that feel.

Still, the thorny problem of where to sit now raised its head due to the dewy grass situation and only two portable chairs. With the cheering squad out front, my plan to use the front veranda was now squelched. But, again, note bene, artists do not give up and our party most gallantly walked around the back grounds before discovering, much to our collective delight, a side terrace complete with fabulous scrolled metal chairs and tables. By now the cheering squad had disappeared, presumably inside the Mansion. I collected the bags from the car and our small party began to settle into various chairs. Almost instantly a woman emerged from the Mansion to inquire who we were. We explained that our art class couldn’t meet in the Arts Center as it had been overtaken by quilters and that we’d hoped to sketch some of the surroundings here on the terrace. The woman said the Mansion had been rented for the day at great expense by a local college for a faculty retreat and that she’d have to ask if they minded a small party of artists on the terrace. They didn’t.

I expected the cheering had been inflicted on them by one of those retreat leader types because later in the morning several very nice women emerged onto the terrace for a few moments of fresh air and we thanked them for their kindness in allowing us to sit there and sketch. They said they were happy to have us—they were artists and writers too, teachers at the college. They understood.
So, there we all were. And I suspect that our party had the better deal. As their leader, I did not ask them to cheer but, I have to say, they are a wondrous and cheery group. Even after a bit of a prickly political discussion (we are naturally all very liberal and desperate for change) and the challenge of drawing the bigger landscape, which we all found difficult after so many weeks of focusing on smaller things. Still, our work grows stronger each time we meet. But, really, what I love is the way a bit of fun makes our souls shine brighter.

On that happy note, The Saturday Morning Ladies Drawing Club retires into other summer pursuits until September.

June 4th, 2007 | Category: Drawing Life | Comments (3)

My friend Emily, who is a gifted and esteemed classical musician, joined us at the Saturday morning drawing class this past weekend. She loves art but had never drawn before. Both this week and the one before we’ve been working from simple forms—oranges, limes, mangoes, eggplants, an orange pepper, a lemon. So it was a good class for Emily to come to because drawing simple things is easy in some ways.

But making the drawing compelling is not so simple. We explored negative space this time, the space around the object. In Japanese art there’s a conscious emphasis on making the negative space dynamic and finding balance between negative and positive. When we find that balance the work starts to take on resonance and we want to keep looking at it. Without it, we feel the image is overly familiar or dull and turn away. At least, I do!
Emily did wondrous work, full of imagination. Being an artist in one realm carries into other realms, not to mention life. The whole class sprinted forward, liberated by the simplicity of what we were putting our attention to and by the challenge too. Of course, next week we will shake all of that up when we step outside to draw. It will be interesting to see if we can find the simplicity in the great wide open space around us.

Next week is our last class and I will take the summer off from teaching this wonderful group of artists. I am in the midst of another writing project that I want to finish in July. And I’m also doing some new graphic art work in story form. I see possibiliities for that work to manifest on a higher level than some of the hard labor graphic work I did in the past to pay the bills. I’m truly excited about the way my work is unfolding even in the midst of small discouragements. Like the Buddha said—everything is perfect. My job is to keep responding to what calls me and trusting it is for a good reason. I do trust that.

This blog will likely go down to once a week or less, after next week’s class. There will be, with luck, a report of sitting ocean side on a sunny summer day doing nothing at all but feeling grateful for being here. Cheers!

May 29th, 2007 | Category: Drawing Life | Comments (3)

It was hot and sunny on Saturday and I decided that with summer in the air, at last, that we ought to draw tropical fruits—oranges and lemons and limes. The great thing about drawing such simple shapes is that anyone can do it with a fair amount of accuracy and we can then focus on the bigger issues of drawing—line and color and composition. Do we do line first or shape? How do we introduce color—as a block or just in hints? There’s no right or wrong. What’s important is that we become conscious of what we’re doing and stick to that consciousness throughout. When we start stabbing away in a mindless way things can get pretty muddy.
Three hours of drawing the same things can get boring unless we’re really finding that consciousness. David Hockney says there are infinite ways to approach the way we represent things with line and color. Once we hook into that infinite possibility and find an angle to explore, we can draw all day. Everyone in class got to the place of deep fascination and experimentation—very exciting.
Art is great practice for focus. It’s a yogic practice—one-pointed attention. It clears all the other dross from our minds and helps us get to that pure space where inspiration creeps in the back door. I think that’s as beautiful as any picture we make.

May 15th, 2007 | Category: Drawing Life | Leave a comment

We did monoprints again in our Saturday morning art class. It’s a drawing class but I want us to draw in a lot of different ways so we get to know what way speaks to us. We’ve done a lot in charcoal so making monoprints is an opportunity to create an image that is more graphic and abstract.

This time we carved images into rubber. It cuts like butter so you can get a nice smooth line if you want to. We ended up with a bunch of rubber stamps and went from there, partly because I forgot to bring the retarder and when we rolled out ink on plexiglass plates it dred too quickly to draw into it. Still, some fabulous work was done by our intrepid group who are not daunted by less than perfect circumstances, as true artists are not.

Some of us struggle with our imagery and what we want to do. I am struggling myself at the moment. My own true preference is to draw more in the style of cartoons, to create an alternate universe of dancing crocodiles and things like that. But it’s fun to explore and discover other aspects of ourselves. Developing a visual language takes time and even though discourageent sometimes raises its naughty head we just have to carry on. We have to keep doing things over and over in art. And over and over we have to let go of expectation and flow with what emerges. There’s always something great in it.
I occasionally think I ought to be ‘teaching’ more, telling them how to do things. But I resist doing that as much as possible. We’ve all jumped into the deep end of the pool. Sometimes but we flail around a bit, but that’s okay. It’s a faster way to learn and far less inhibiting than having someone stand over you and tell you you’ve got it all wrong—although some people do prefer that way. In our class, we look for what we like in things and try to build on that. And I’ve seen every artist grow, which is a credit to their brave experimentation.

More important than the art is the deep pleasure of sitting with a group of super people all immersed, deeply immersed, in the process of making something fabulous. Sharing a few laughs, dropping a word or two here and there but mostly just working, working. We have the music on and outside the sun shines. Afterwards we lay our work out and look to see the wonders within it.

And next Saturday I will actually bring the retarder and a new kind of paper.

May 8th, 2007 | Category: Drawing Life | Comments (2)