Drawing in the Abstract
This time of year is never easy for me, and even more so this year with the impending loss of my therapist on the horizon. Actually, that’s happening tomorrow, but I don’t want to think about that right now especially as it’s an ending in which I have had no say in whatsoever, yet I digress. I have been looking for ways to distract myself and to really channel all of my emotions into my art, and last week the perfect opportunity presented itself to me.
I took part in a workshop at a local art studio in Stroud, ‘Studio 18’, where artist Zachary Walsh was teaching a workshop entitled ‘Drawing in the Abstract’. I went to the workshop wanting to discover how other artists are able to loose themselves in their work in a way where they can produce work without any reference material at all. Where they can freely make marks without worrying about everything looking perfect. I was not disappointed.
After producing some initial marking making work and exploring materials we all jumped onto a large roll of Fabriano paper and went a little crazy with all the materials, including paint and we made a lot of mess. We were encouraged to make marks that expressed something from within and not just random scribbles. I must confess to being slightly lost on some of the philosophy behind the intention of this mark making. However, I did note down some of the recommended reading materials some of which included Carl Jung, Ram Dass, Don Juan and Carlos Castaneda. Something to look into at a later date.
After lunch we were encouraged to work on our own individual pieces on A2 200gsm cartridge paper. It might sound a little strange, especially for someone like me who has a BA Hons and post graduate diploma in art, but I felt like for the first time in my life I was being given ‘permission’ to actually make ‘bad art’. I don’t really know why I felt like I needed ‘permission’ to do this before, but in a strange kind of way, perhaps I did. It was transformative.
I must say that I have no intension of ditching portraiture and realism, none at all. Yet, I am fascinated by the freedom found in the abstract and I have for many years been seeking the bravery and courage to somehow merge the two disciplines. I am not entirely sure how to go about doing this, but my next body of work will be exploring this concept. More on this later.
As we were working on our own pieces Zach put on a random mix of music which I must also confess to not really knowing what it was. Oh to be more hip! I think some of it may have been reggae dubstep, and some of it was definitely drum and bass – genres which I am not very familiar with. Yet I did not dislike this music, far from it, I felt like I was actually getting my groove on!
In my previous blog I spoke about how I have spent a lifetime wishing I could sing and being consistently offended by own feeble attempts to do so. This is not the case with dancing. For me dancing has always been something that comes very naturally. I love doing it and I love the way you can switch off your mind and let the music tell your body what to do. I have always enjoyed doing so in the privacy of my own home because I’m not really brave enough to do it anywhere else.
It seemed really interesting to me that during this workshop we were encouraged to draw not just with our hands but with our whole bodies – hence the massive sheet of Fabriano paper. I realised that this could be where I have been going wrong in the past – I have not been listening to the right kind of music! What I should have been listening to is music that makes you feel stoned, or at least, how I imagine that would feel. (Yeah, that’s right, I’ve never been stoned. As someone who has spent a lifetime struggling with a range of mental health disorders, who has alcoholic and drug addicted relatives and who has witnessed the damage this can cause, I have never trusted myself with anything stronger than a gin and tonic. A little sad perhaps, but true. Do I sometimes regret not being more experimental and adventurous? Yeah, sometimes.)
Anyway, I found myself approaching the abstract pieces in a way that was very similar to dance – to switch off, or at least quieten down the inner critic and let the music inform the way I moved my body and made marks. It was incredibly liberating. When I got home I instantly raced upstairs to my studio, found some similar sounding music to put on and carried on making abstracts into the evening. I think my husband was somewhat perplexed when arriving home later that night to find me in an extremely chaotic studio, listening to (and I quote) “stoner music” and creating artwork that is very far removed from my usual precisely detailed work. But I was having a whale of a time.
What I am interested in now is looking at ways in which I can take this experience and use it in my portraits. Whilst I have not yet completed my ‘Conversations in Therapy’ series, I have begun a new body of work for which I am the model. I think it can be helpful to work on several paintings at a time, though I usually don’t work this way. Currently I have 4 paintings on the go in my studio, two from the therapy series, and two smaller pieces from my new self-portrait series. I am not sure how I am going to merge the abstract with realism, I’m not sure if I am going to be able to do this successfully or if it will turn out into a hot mess. But one thing I have learnt from this workshop is that the fun is in the not knowing, it’s in the discovery. I’d better crank up the Dub.
