Drawing
Fieldwork Marfa, May 2024.
This past May I drove to Marfa to study art theory with Abinadi Meza and my fellow graduate students for two weeks.
This trip to West Texas would be different from my previous two- or three-night stays. With two weeks, I had time to settle, wander, and reflect.
Read MoreThe fall was spent with wood fabrication and getting settled in my new studio space (see previous post). In the spring, I followed through with some of the experiments I had begun in the later part of the fall semester. I also took my first two college credit art history courses.
Read More
Still from William Kentridge’s Stereoscope (1999)
William Kentridge is a process artist among many other things. He creates, paces, adjusts, and creates again. His work evolves, and ideas develop along the way. The process is natural yet not often seen or done so eloquently.
Read MoreRoni Horn, The Dogs’ Chorus. Let Slip to the Ends of the Earth, 2016. Watercolor, pen and ink, gum arabic on paper with tape.
Roni Horn is a contemporary artist based in New York and Iceland. Horn makes use of sculpture, photography, and drawing. Unconstrained by labels and an “artistic style”, Roni Horn commits to ambiguous and challenging projects.
Last spring, I visited at the Menil Drawing Institute for the first time and viewed “Roni Horn: When I Breathe, I Draw, Part I”. The exhibition featured cut assemblages on paper. The works were large and precise. They were also oddly intuitive, natural. I enjoyed how both the deconstruction and careful reconstruction were subtly apparent.
Read MoreI participated in this centuries old practice for the first time when I was about 10. I copied Albrecht Dürer’s The Rhinoceros. At approximately 18” x 24”, it was the largest drawing I had ever made plus it looked gnarly. Even my older brother liked it and kept it safe after I tried to get rid of it.
Read MoreI introduced The Drawing Marathon in my last post. Click here to read it.
To clear workspace, we kept our large drawings in the this room.
On the first day, we drew 10 22” x 22” drawings. We chose a model, drew his/her head 10 times and described the space it held and was held in. My classmates and I thought that was a lot of drawings of heads. Little did we know that would be the focus for the following two weeks.
Day 1 of the Drawing Marathon
The strong paper required at least 4 staples on the top and bottom.
The Drawing Marathon offered many challenges. Drawing all day, cutting heavy paper that just wanted to curl, gluing sheets together, stapling giant pieces of paper onto walls, getting charcoal everywhere, using a wall rather than an easel (made a complete 180 to study the models)… The most frustrating challenge, however, was mental. Instead of focusing on space and composition, I often obsessed over likeness. I felt compelled to concentrate on facial features rather than the over all composition. Self conscious, I wanted to prove that I could draw “well”. It was a huge distraction.
Untitled, (DM #4)
Charcoal on Saunders Waterford
66 x 66
2019
During one of the critiques Graham argued that most artists can be separated into two groups: “image makers” and “image searchers”. Picasso was an “image maker”. Cezanne was a “image searcher”. I am interested in exploring this concept… if you have any resource suggestions or opinions of your own, please share in the comments below.
Prior to the Drawing Marathon, I struggled with how to start. I thought it was essential to begin with a specific idea or concept. Working without a plan seemed frivolous or half assed. I was wrong. A drawing is legitimate even if its story is not apparent when the process begins. In other words, a work is no less powerful if its meaning is uncovered after the work has already begun.
The biggest surprise and greatest growth opportunity was the night I volunteered myself to demonstrate the next day’s assignment (draw a crowd using the the 10 heads we drew over the weekend) in front of the entire class. I had no idea what I was getting into. At most, I thought I would be sticking a couple of small drawings onto a larger piece of paper with tape and drawing a few planes and shapes to create the groundwork for a composition.
I was incorrect. After somewhat haphazardly throwing my 10 heads onto the massive blank sheet of paper, I waited for Graham’s instructions. Comfortably wearing jeans, a long sleeve shirt, and a jean jacket, I had no idea I was about to draw vigorously across the sheet and nervously build a sweat for the next hour. Graham told me to redraw several of the heads 2-4x their size, add figures, hands and feet. I ran out of charcoal almost immediately. The TA’s helped me flip the drawing upside down two different times as directed. By the time I was finished, I had drawn for at least an hour in front the whole class. Prior to that I had never drawn in front of another person for more than 5 minutes.
The activity boosted my confidence and opened the possibility for play… even with people staring at me… (and, at least in my head, judging me).
Graham and his TA’s suggested I look closely at the work of Edvard Munch, Johannes Vermeer, Max Beckmann, Emile Nolde, van Gogh, Henri Matisse, and Francis Bacon. Over the next few weeks, I will reading about their work and sharing the highlights on the blog.
Untitled, (DM #9)
Charcoal on Saunders Waterford
60 x 51
2019
Untitled, (DM #6)
Charcoal and Acrylic on Arches
70 x 50
2019
Untitled, (DM #8)
Charcoal on Saunders Waterford
66 x 70
2019
Reading:
Ninth Street Women, Mary Gabriel
Listening:
Peter Plagens: Artist-Slash-Critic, Glasstire
Watching:
William Kentridge – ‘Art Must Defend the Uncertain’ | TateShots
For two weeks in June I participated in the Drawing Marathon at the New York Studio School and drew all day, every day. I woke up around 6AM, drank coffee, put on black clothes (essential for charcoal) and took the subway to the New York Studio School to draw until 6PM. At 6:30PM, our class met for critique. Around 8 or 9PM, class was dismissed. M-F, this was my routine. It was intense to say the least.
Our teacher and dean of the school Graham Nickson founded the Marathon programs in 1988. Since then, marathons have become a main component of the New York Studio’s MFA program. While NYSS offers a several types of “marathons”, the Drawing Marathon is the “original”. The course challenges students to engage with drawing as both a physical and cerebral activity.
Each Drawing Marathon is different based on what Graham feels is most appropriate. I met a few students who had participated in the program 8+ times. One marathon involved a bunch of umbrellas. Another, a miniature toy horse. In this summer’s session, we focused on the head as a means of understanding scale, space and depth.
Untitled
Charcoal on Arches
60” x 60”
2019
A few days out and back in Houston, I’m still in a bit of daze. I got caught up in the city’s energy. Go, go go! Drawing, drinking, walking, looking at art, and meeting people. Now, I have a New York hangover. While I digest everything and catch up on sleep, read a much more well written New York Times article about the Drawing Marathon by Sarah Boxer.
Reading:
“Jerry Saltz on ’93 in Art”, Jerry Saltz, New York Magazine
Ninth Street Women, Mary Gabriel
“Probing the Proper Grounds for Criticism in the Wake of the 2019 Whitney Biennial”, Seph Rodney, Hyperallergic
Listening:
#188: Digital Minimalism, Cal Newport, 10% Happier with Dan Harris
Watching:
At Eternity’s Gate (2018)
On the Basis of Sex (2018)
Scott David Gordon
This past weekend, I visited Austin to see PrintAustin: The Contemporary Print at Big Medium. One of my works was included in the show, and I was looking forward to seeing the exhibit before it closed on February 16th.
The exhibit featured artwork from 35 artists and explored both traditional and innovative approaches to printmaking. My piece Coast in Distance #1 represents a traditional approach. It is a monotype that I created by inking a plexi plate with etching ink, removing ink using brushes and swabs, placing printmaking paper on top of the plate, and passing it through the press. Edgar Degas used this technique, which MoMa covers well in this video.
Coast in Distance #1 at Big Medium
I recognized techniques like screen printing, lithography, intaglio, etching, and linoleum cut block printing. However, there were many less familiar processes like “soap ground and spit bite aquatint and drypoint”, “photopolymer gravure”, “solarplate intaglio”, “mezzotint”, and “collagraph”.
Thankfully, YouTube provides an endless library of videos to research some of these processes. After watching these videos for a couple of hours, I came to the conclusion that it was impossible to learn about every process in a single night, so I moved on. Below are some of my favorites.
I find printmaking, particularly when it involves a press, to bring together the best elements of drawing and darkroom photography. There is a mark making component, but there are also multiple steps, sometimes intricate steps, that involve machinery and tools that you can only have so much control over. It creates a mystique that you have to respond to and build upon.
At the exhibit, I was drawn to a piece by Christine Meuris. It combined screen printing and sewing. The piece Ivory Bargello Refraction is second to the right in the photo below.
Sarah Frankie Linder
In her artist statement, Meuris explains that she “sew[s] paper as a way to reinterpret and explore the continuing value of handicraft traditions in our times”. Whatever the purpose, her work inspires, excites, and calms all at the same time.
I have been interested in the juxtaposition of threadwork since I was first introduced to it in 2011 while I was studying photography at NYU. Carolle Benitah’s Photo-Souvenirs were exhibiting at VII Gallery which I visited with my class. I enjoyed how Benitah drew (with thread) on top of her family photos. The threadwork added commentary, revealed, and foreshadowed. Most importantly, it questioned what was originally portrayed.
Les Cafards / The Cockroaches
Carolle Benitah
The Contemporary Print was was organized in partnership with PrintAustin and juried by Dr. Anna Katherine Brodbeck, Associate Curator of Contemporary Art at the Dallas Museum of Art. Big Medium, where the exhibit was held, produces the East Austin Studio Tour, the West Austin Studio Tour, and the Texas Biennial. It is located at Canopy in East Austin which is similar in many ways to Winter/Spring Street in Houston.
After The Contemporary Print, I visited Mass Gallery which is located in a standalone building in East Austin. Their exhibition INTERWOVEN features the work of six arts who work in textiles. In other words, I saw more stitch work!
Orly Cogan
Works by Orly Cogan and Fort Lonesome drew me in. Cogan’s work undoubtedly explores the feminine and the role of women. I enjoyed how she uses embroidery, a medium historically reserved for women, to create imagery that confronts and questions feminine archetypes. Stylistically, it is whimsical yet serious.
Fort Lonesome’s work at Mass Gallery
Fort Lonesome’s work, on the other hand, focuses on landscapes and the unique qualities that chainstitch embroidery can create. I am having trouble identifying exactly why I enjoyed her work. I just know I did enjoy it.
Next, I visited Women & Their Work. They are located near The University of Texas on Lavaca. In their main gallery, Women & Their Work is showing Hedwige Jacobs’s exhibition If I could, I would cover everything with my drawings. No, embroidery is not featured. Part installation and part video, the exhibit is a meditation of observation.
Tiny Drawing Series
Hedwige Jacobs
2018
Pen and Ink on Paper
Jacobs’s work is playful yet contemplative. I felt joy and calm throughout the exhibit. Something about the exhibit invites the viewer closer and farther away at the same time.
Yes, I thoroughly enjoyed my weekend in Austin. While The Contemporary Print is no longer showing, you can still visit INTERWOVEN through March 2nd and If I could, I would cover everything with my drawings through February 28th. If you do visit these exhibitions, please share your thoughts on either or both in the comment section below.
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Currently reading:
How Emotions Are Made by Lisa Feldman Barrett
Walk Through Walls: A Memoir by Marina Abramovic
Severance by Ling Ma
Happy Yoga by Steve Ross
Currently listening to:
#136 The Founder, Reply All
Hyperallergic Editors Reflect on Warhol’s Superbowl Commercial, MoMA Expansion, and More, Hyperallergic
