Starting with a bench........

The model spreads herself along the bench, then, next, gains support curling her hand over the edge of the bench, and later her foot springing off the surface. Yes, I do sometimes draw the whole pose, and I do regularly and frequently focus on hands and feet. But this is not my art! The bench in these cases is the context, and I very rarely include context. I emphasised this in a recent posting. So what is my art? My answer to this question I would like to suggest is that my art is my process. But I have claimed this before, and if I look back at my postings on this blog then the analysis and descriptions of my life-drawings and my life-drawing journey most often centres on process. Rarely the drawing as a finished work is mentioned and almost never have I attempted to produce a completed work. However my fascination with my process has increased, my research attempts to understand what happens when I draw a muse have been revealing, and above all I am beginning to gain a real insight into what is taking place in terms of perception, emotion, feelings, dialogue with the muse, conscious and un/sub-conscious thought, and perhaps some other aspects as well. I have become aware that (sometimes) after starting a drawing, i.e. selecting what to start to draw on the paper, the next really conscious event is standing back to view the drawing and being surprised or even taken-aback by that which I am looking at. Now, this doesn't happen every time, but it has been an increasingly occurring experience. And I am enjoying it. I have talked in the past about periods when I have felt I have taken an ownership of my art. That my art is coming from within myself. But this has been with reference to my mark-making (particularly with graphite pencils and fine-liner pens), my drawing with both hands simultaneously, and the way I select and juxtapose parts of the anatomy of the muse through morphing, overlap and transparency. Yet, experimentation is at the heart of my process. This is not a conscious will to dabble into the unknown, but more simply not having a plan or a goal or something to aim for. So, when I enter the life-drawing session I do not have a plan (I think probably I did in the very early days). But I believe now that a significant overall life-drawing strategy is taking place. This is not a conscious designed strategy........it is simply what happens...….. 

This blog is basically a weekly diary in which I post my drawings and attempt some sort of analysis of them, and at times provides a context following my reading and research which itself is usually prompted by what has occurred. A few days or the evening before a life-drawing session I often look though my previous drawings, sometimes I may go though the hundreds stored on my tablet, and just think about what has been happening, those I like, those I find have a radical aspect, those which suggest something to pursue, etc. So this then is the conscious part of the overall process. What happens when I start to draw? What is different? What is it that drives one forward? I believe that activation is maintained in the unconscious by the intense desire to solve the problem at hand. At Paul Fowler's Extreme Poses in Stroud the 30 minute pose creates a problem. Basically it is one of time. Something will be produced within the 30 minutes. The intense desire to solve this problem can produce stresses that in turn cause associations that are not possible in conscious thought. Hence my surprise on occasions of what I have produced. 

During the evening before February 28th at Extreme Poses I made these notes in my note-book of a kind of summary of what I was seeing in my latest works:

• depth through transparency, and not depth through perspective
• ambiguity via my morphic fusions
• different scales in one drawing
• an overall pose alongside several selected anatomical parts
• parts confined within the parameters of an outline of the overall pose
• layers (Cezanne)
• the big, confident line

My overall term for all of the above is 'Spatial Ambiguity'. And I place this alongside the term 'Transparency Drawings' which I borrow from Francis Picabia which may be defined as 'complexely layering them and piling them on top of each other to provoke confusion and strange associations'. Picabia was around in Paris with Picasso and Braque and can be seen to have developed his own version of cubism through overlap, different scales, and transparent layers of drawings on top of each other. I first came across the very complex drawings of Picabia perhaps 4 or 5 years ago, found them fascinating but did not study him or his art at all. In fact I rather dismissed his work as too complex and not relevant to me. But very recently in reading about Picasso's cubist journey I discovered that Picabia's ideas and approach to figurative response and representation seemed to appear so similar to that which was emerging with me. One may conclude that my un-conscious took note when first coming across his drawings 4 or 5 years ago, and then in the stress situation (noted above) of the 30 minute pose at Extreme Poses caused an association within the un-conscious thinking taking place around the current drawing.

I feel that my own version of cubism is flourishing. Metzenger and Gleises in their seminal publication 'Du Cubisme' unleashed the standard definition of cubism as representing a scene as if the observer were "moving around an object (in order to) seize it from several successive appearances".

A Miller is his writings on Picasso suggests "How you look at it, that is what it is". That is really encouraging, and I have no hesitation in placing a great value on my own drawings 'cause I now have confidence in believing they do say something about how I am seeing things. Salvador Dali spotlights the creative aspect of one's own particular and peculiar way of seeing "Knowing how to look is a way of inventing". Rene Magritte suggests a bountiful outcome from this "Each thing we see hides something else we want to see". And it was Picabia through his transparency drawings who revealed how we could show that which was normally hidden and therefore frequently not drawn. If I now add a further challenge in my quest to comprehend what happens when I do life-drawing, and to remind myself that it is the process, but more specifically the perceptual process I am fascinated by, I quote Marcel Duchamp "It's not what you see is art. Art is the gap".

Finally, I want to touch on the 4th-Dimension, which I have introduced and discussed in recent postings, and suggested that on occasions my process is of the 4th-Dimension. Duchamp described Picabia's 'Otaiti' as "creating a 3rd-Dimension without resorting to perspective". Depth rather than surface is the chief characteristic of transparency. The 4th-Dimension is about space and time together. A variant on a Metzenger quote from an article of 1911: a cubist picture can be likened to "moving around an object to seize it from several successive appearances, which, fused into a single image, reconstitute it in time". In many of my 15 or so drawings from my 3 days at Niel Bally's studio in Talgarth I did not need to move around the muse because either the muse took a step forward and around every five minutes, or she lay and rolled over every five minutes, in both cases recalling Duchamp's figure descending a staircase. However, I believe I am fully and truly taking my process into the 4th-Dimension, of space and time, when I am in front of a single pose and I  select a part or anatomical event to draw because it captures my attention for one reason or another, then I select a second part or another anatomical event and include it probably at a different scale, and so on and so on. There emerges perhaps a narrative which helps juxtapose these individual parts, and they gradually relate together. Each may (will) have its own perspective. Each may (will) be drawn to a scale which seems natural to that part. They will be added overtime and reflect my journey in and around and through the pose. Each part will have its place within the space defined by the parameters of the paper, yet the space will go beyond the edges of the paper, and will go into the depths of the paper. And further more, the drawing with the above spatial qualities, will take place within the space between me and the muse, a perceptual- kinetic space which probably extends beyond the 4th-Dimension (but I have yet to research this).

On 08.02.2019 I wrote in my note-book:
A very new/different feeling today with the first three drawings...…..as though my drawings were taking place way beyond where I was in my journey.
Explanation: when I photograph my drawings and place them on my blog, and complete some text, to go with them, I am in effect drawing a line. But this is not a 'conscious' line. Not a deliberate act. Yet, this is what in fact takes place:

• the completion of an enquiry
• the termination of a task
• the compiling of a statement of a set of five drawings which have dealt with something particular and probably something new.

This feeling I had I described about my drawings: this was a kind of 'jump' into the future. Yet, I was still in the present. There was something completely different taking place about which I had no previous experience. I could not describe or explain it other than it was a feeling that I was performing in a completely sub/un-conscious way. This has probably happened in the past but I have not been sensitive to it. Not articulated it. (as I write I'm still not sure about what is taking place).
Is it possible to draw in a future state?
OR
To draw in a way, different to anything in the past, but not be aware/conscious of what is happening?


'Life-drawing is a figurative art' ………. not a quote from anyone as far as I can recall …….. but I have noted that in descriptions of the developments in cubism that following Metzenger's promotion, formalisation and intellectualisation of the works of Picasso and Braque that someone like Gris went on to begin to loose connection with anything that resembled a human figure and eventually people such as Kandinsky departed completely. I am absolutely certain that my muses will never be transformed into the abstract, just as Picasso (according to A Miller) could never come to terms with an abstract art devoid of any figurative content whatsoever. Mine may be deconstructed, re-arranged, morphed, and they may have their anatomies strangely juxtaposed, but I am hoping that the way I see, and the sum of the marks that appear on my paper, say that 'the whole goes/takes one beyond the sum of the parts'. I have always recognised the therapeutic and meditative qualities and benefits of life-drawing and I am now relishing the confidence I have in my ability to enter a deep sub/un-conscious state which has an outcome which can more than often appear evolutionary but at times can be surprising and on rare occasions be...……. well, here, I am lost for words ……. perhaps 'spiritual'.

February 14th at Extreme Poses

3 days in Talgarth: Introduction

My next posting reveals my engagement with the models whilst with Niel Bally in his studio over in Talgarth, Powys. We had Jacquie on the first day, then Katie for the other two. It was quite an extraordinary start for me. Niel started by asking the model to present a series of five minute standing poses each one moving as step or two forward. So, this was like a re-enactment of Duchamp's figure moving down a staircase, and for me a continuation of my engagement with Cubism. Take a look! What a start! There then followed a series of opportunities to explore further my approach in which I like to explore the pose from a number of viewpoints simultaneously. This continued into the second and third days, and as a result I felt I had been helped to evolve my life-drawing journey in a most unanticipated way. I will be attempting to say something about some of the more significant drawings in due course.

February 7th at Extreme Poses

A good morning in the 4th-Dimension

Braque: He described "objects shattered into fragments… [as] a way of getting closest to the object…Fragmentation helped me to establish space and movement in space”.

So, here goes.....Moving through space and time, from one part to another, different perspectives and varying scales, with the amazing Clare, at Extreme Poses on the last day of January 2019. Drawings from five 30 minute poses.

Space, Geometry and Ambiguity

I am starting this post by going back to 2.30pm on Thursday January 10th and I have just sat down with a pint and awaiting my beer battered cod and chips in the Kings Head in Usk, after returning from a morning at Paul Fowler's 'Extreme Poses' over in Stroud in England. In front of a log fire I open my note/sketch book to reflect on the morning's experience...…………….

"If I had an 'intention' it was to try to see what the 4th-Dimension is. I had really set myself up for today (reading Miller, reading about Cezanne and Picasso and Cubism, and spending time on a number of postings on my blog). I felt to be on an 'intellectual plane', distant from my immediate reality, and ready to engage my mind with the process of engaging with the model/pose/body/person/muse/specific anatomical characteristics - I would be pursuing my academic engagement with my subject thro' the act of drawing. Yes: my drawing will become much more a part of my thinking, part of my searching, part of my seeing, part of me! My drawing is no longer outside myself, something I am looking at, not an 'object' any longer. So, the model is not an object. And, now, the drawing is not an object.
I experienced/felt a 'floating' feeling, and was devoid of any goal(s) when I sat down to draw. The model is Clare: no wish/desire/urge/challenge to draw the whole pose, as a representational response...………. but just to start with that which 'attracted' and to explore/go-in-and-around/bring those 'key parts' together thro' 'overlap', 'transparency', 'conscious juxtapositioning' - simply to engage with.... With what?...… her, or the act of drawing?"

Now, a jump forward, about a week, and I have been delving into the catalogue of the Arts Council's Picasso exhibition held at the Tate Gallery, July to September 1960. Why this particular publication? Well, I was there. I had just left school in the June and waiting to go to art college in the September. Now, I recall very little, except that this was my first sight of Picasso's work, and I had little or no understanding of Cubism. But I do recall that I was aware of the importance of Picasso. So off I went.

58 years later, I still have the catalogue, and reading the chapters by Roland Penrose, who had a long-standing friendship with Picasso and an exceptional knowledge of his work, I can now begin to understand what Cubism is about. So here are a few extracts from Penrose and specifically from the chapter entitled 'Analytical Cubism' which describes the period 1910-1912 before Picasso moved on to a period called Synthetic Cubism...…………………..

"In order to understand form and interpret its existence on a flat surface they felt it necessary to break into the form, separate its elements, penetrate beneath the surface and become conscious of that which cannot be seen because accidentally it is at the back of the object in question. The appearance of an object taken from one point of view was manifestly insufficient. It should be conceived from all angels. They painted what they knew to be there. The traditional rules of linear perspective were completely abandoned, and modelling in the round gave place to flat crystalline facets which, built up together, gave the appearance of a solid form"

[at this point Penrose also talks of the 'close relationship of figures or objects and their background. A sense of homogeneity throughout the picture was created by uniting the background closely with the objects so as never to allow a rift to appear between them'. This is where I differ significantly as I rarely, if ever, introduce background or context into my drawings. My figures, or the parts I select to bring together, exist within space. There is space within, there is space behind, there is space beyond, there is space extending outside the paper. I have gone further in recognising the significance of the space between myself and the paper, and the space between myself and the model. I have referred to the way I operate and perceive within this space as my kinetic approach].

"The eye as it travels over the picture finds itself above, behind, and in front of the object at the same time, but the movement is in the consciousness of the spectator rather than in the object itself. All these varied aspects are woven together into a new realisation of the totality of the object"

So, I believe that thro' my own analysis and critical appraisal of my own life-drawing, and in my attempts to select a descriptive language about my perceptual processes and ways of seeing, and my endeavours to understand what emerges on my paper, I have touched upon some aspects of that amazingly radical new approach to art that took place just over 100 years ago. My reading about Cubism, and about the mathematicians, philosophers, scientists, who met over a glass of wine, or a joint, in Montmartre with Picasso, Braque, and others, and who influenced each other and helped each other to more understand their own work, provides a refreshing context for me to continue my journey. I talked in the early days of this blog of my philosophy that 'Paths are made by walking'. I cannot recall having come across the work of an artist and responded that I would love to emulate the work and have never 'copied'. I believe I have always explored and experimented in my own way. When something recognisable has occurred I may then search for something, or someone, similar in a quest to understand myself better. When this has happened I have written about it. But, there emerged a time, when I truly felt that my art was coming very much from within myself. Perhaps four or five years ago, but much more strongly within the past year. I then talked of my ownership of what I was doing and thinking and the way I was drawing. This is not about product or outcome, it is about process. It is not about having a plan each life-drawing day, or about having a long-term goal. I relish viewing and talking with others about what happens on my paper. It is so often a surprise.



29.10.2019
Just come across a blog 'Ownerless-Mind' and found this...……

"You have to be your own Guru.
 You must reach that point from where you guide yourself 
in such a way that the guiding lines become part of you"
Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi


And finally this evening: I now know that my understandings and my manipulations of space as an architect have been severely challenged by my explorations and discoveries in life-drawing, and my appreciation of Picasso's radical experiments in Space, Geometry and Ambiguity.

"Because there are different ways of viewing an object, there is no single reality" Princet.

Four continuing from last week (and one not)

Following on from what I have referred to as my engagement with the 4th-Dimension. The first, second and fifth are working well. The third, a hand on the plinth, is the outcome of a rage of frustration as I failed to deal with the foreshortening of the lower arm and its perspective going away from me. The last-minute quick sketch on the right suggests a bit better how it should be.