My life-drawing in its context.
What prompted these thoughts?
A recent email from a close friend (Evan) highlighted two subjects which are pertinent to me at this time.
He wrote:
“You have a fabulous setup and obviously get a lot of fulfilment out of your small holding on the hill. And must be glorious this time of the year...and with your children close by/open fires. In many respects this is something of an idyll as we enter the autumn of our lives. Well done for that”
“I would love to get something quite philosophical going on our Whatapp group. What’s it like to be old in today’s world – when fewer and fewer want to engage with >80 year olds. Do we have anything left to give, to say of significance. How many of the Group remain curious – are they just living out their time? What do we all spend our minds thinking about?”
[Evan and I are in a group who left school in 1960, went our individual ways, started meeting up after 50 years, and have been doing so annually since. We are all now 80 or so]
COVID created a vacuum. The usual behaviours, events, activities, became suspended. The structure to the passing of time which the repetition of weekly or monthly events gave, no longer existed. The positive outcome, not immediate, has been a realisation that we have been provided with ‘A state for reflection’, an opportunity to ask ‘Do we continue as before?’ ‘Can we pick up from where we left off?’ ‘Am I still connected with my past?’ ‘Am I a different person?’ ‘What has emerged in me, in my life, in my thinking, which is different or new?’
Becoming 80 has also been significant. Not in itself for me. 80 is just a number, and you are as old as you feel. Yet, so many people herald age milestones as achievements and celebrate them. So one is encouraged to believe that, at 80, ‘That’s it’..........Well, it’s not! Life is a continuum, until it is reparably interrupted or terminated.
So let me now respond to my friend’s observation (about life on our hill) and his request to consider ‘life after 80’.
The Context
Life on our hill: It is an idyll. But it a designed idyll. Set up in the 1970’s with the aim of ‘growing our own food’, ‘building our own house’, ‘living a healthy life for us and our children’. Our small-holding continues to this day, which demands our physical attention every day but sustains our health and wellbeing and enhances our spiritual engagement with the land and with the five thousand year history of its habitation.
Life after 80: I retired 18 years ago but I remain an academic. Which means that I think about what I am doing, I question it, I analyse it, and I enquire and research parallels and context. This approach applies equally to my life on the land as it does to my life as an artist who studies human anatomy.
So my academic pursuits are:
a) researching the history and archaeology of our hill (i.e. Gaer Fawr Iron Age hillfort with earlier Neolithic or Bronze Age constructions),
b) consistantly studying how to create a sustainable and healthy way of life through building shelter, growing food, respecting animals, nurturing soil, being part of and not apart from nature, and
c) researching my art (I am a life-drawer, and have documented my 16 years of drawing the male and female nude, and have related my work to that of great artists and movements).
So, at 80 let us look at the decade ahead. The body will take care of itself. What of the mind? This is my answer.................
Mind
I am researching: ‘The Neolithic Mind’
We have a fair idea of what we have on our hill: Medieval, Roman, Iron Age, Bronze Age and possibly late Neolithic archaeology. But what was in the minds of the peoples who first moved across our landscape, who first met, and who first stayed, traded and settled on our hill? As hunter gatherers evolved into farmers......What was their thinking? How do their concepts of place and time and life and death differ from ours? We are beginning to gain insights into ‘The Neolithic Mind’ thro’ interpreting how they thought about and how they used their artefacts, i.e. tools, burial cairns, earthworks, etc.
So this is me looking back into the minds of history, but I also am also attempting to look into the depths of my own mind.
I am researching: ‘The Mind of the Artist’ or perhaps better called 'The Perceptual Mind'
I have already gained an understanding of the apparent complexities of the dialogue between artist and muse. I have discussed the artist/muse relationship on many occasions with models over the years. I have researched the subject of perception. And I believe I can go deeper into this subject and gain a greater understanding of that which appears in my drawings. I am excited by the increasing depths of my insights into the complexities of the perceptual, cognitive, motor and spatial dynamics of interactions between artist and muse
So, we see a future of two dimensions emerging. On the one hand penetrating back into history, discovering our past, and attempting to understand how humans and place came together. On the other, seeking how the mind of the artist responds when in an intimate juxtaposition with the naked body.
It’s Timeless
This is me, now, making connections. But actually, nothing new. I find it fascinating how these two aspects can be seen to be already running in parallel nearly 3,000 years ago. In South East Wales the Silurians were commencing construction of their hillforts around 800BC. On Gaer Fawr they were more than likely attracted by the emphasis that earlier Bronze Age and late Neolithic peoples had given to the place, both as a market/trading place, as a centre for ritual, as a place for connecting life with the passing into the next world. During this same period over in Greece nude female bathers and related scenes were being painted on Athenian pottery from the last quarter of the sixth century to the later fourth century BC. Around 430 BC the sudden appearance of naked kneeling bathing brides, heroines, nymphs, and goddesses on vessels indicates a new concept of the naked female form in art and successfully overcame cultural resistance to establish the female nude as a respectable subject of classical art as early as the later fifth century BC. I believe we then had to wait until the middle of the Renaissance for the female nude to again become an acceptable subject and one which today we take for granted as fundamental to all forms of art.
- Perhaps at this point I should add the following: the above describes the journey of a single person. And I am missing frequent discussion. In fact, I rarely have the opportunity to talk around these issues. A few minutes between poses on Thursday mornings, and a rare meeting at an archaeological talk. It's OK at the moment, whilst still in a state of reflection. But the mind must be stimulated thro’ debate, discussion and challenge. However, I did make a resolution this year to each day climb up and poise myself on the highest point of the hill, and to look over the landscape and the skies around me, and to absorb the tranquility and the timelessness of the place....... I have now done this each day for a week or so......... and it is good!
I’ve taken a break and have returned to continue these notes after three days...................
I have now returned to take forward this writing, but with an additional input. Two evenings ago I learnt of the death of John Thompson. He was prominent in the late 1970’s and 1980’s in the birth of the Community Architecture movement. At this time I was part of a Europe wide network of built environment academics and practitioners promoting an ecological and environmental ethical approach to design. This incorporated a focus on social process which brought building users and communities into the design process to create the buildings in which they would live, work and play.
During the past 24 hours I have linked up with numerous former colleagues from those early days and also those who met together in workshops, seminars, conferences and live projects throughout Europe in the 1990’s plus others around the globe to share our memories of John and to celebrate his life. Unknown to many of us he spent the last five or six years in bed with MSA. John’s passing, and the very recent passing on of so many others who I worked with in shared pioneering programs to change the world, adds a further dimension to the reflective process which I have entered into.
My Resources
What are the resources I am drawing on in my quest?
THE HILL: within this I include our smallholding, wild flower meadows and woodland, our past historical and archaeological research, and our network of archaeologists.
MY BLOG: 15 years of recording and writing about my life-drawing.
MY NOTEBOOKS: A5 pocket sized, going back over 20 years, of sketches, thoughts, visions and plans, etc.
MY HISTORY: my experiences and acquired skills (often forgotten until something stimulates their memory)
The Force
What drives my approach? A recent book ’Art meets Ecology’ appears to be aiding my next step. But first let me go back to my early days of life-drawing and recall an early philosophy ‘Paths are made by walking,’ I go back to a blog posting of January 2010, and because it is still so relevant I will include that posting here in full:
Towards a life drawing philosophy: Part 1 (Jan 2010)
I chose ‘PATHS ARE MADE BY WALKING’ as the title of my blog because I had used these words in a slightly longer version, i.e. “Travellers, there is no path, paths are made by walking” as an inspirational directive for the past three and a half decades of my working and home life.
I discovered that spiritual satisfaction could be achieved if one was in control of one’s own philosophy and actions. I also discovered that to achieve anything, in unfamiliar areas, one just had to make a move in order to start a process off, after which the excitement of discovery through experimentation and trial-and-error became a fascination and a satisfying and fulfilling way of proceeding. I have now found, that in the act and processes of life drawing, this same approach applies, and the same philosophy encourages my way forward as I create my path and continue my journey into the unfamiliar discipline of drawing from a live model. Each drawing is another stride!
The quote is taken from Antonio Machado. Antonio Cipriano José María y Francisco de Santa Ana Machado y Ruiz, known as Antonio Machado (26 July 1875 – 22 February 1939), was a Spanish poet and one of the leading figures of the literary movement known as the Generation of '98.
Antonio Machado (1875-1939) was born in Seville and moved to Madrid at the age of eight. He studied in Paris where he worked as a translator, and met French poets. He became a schoolteacher. He returned to Spain and taught at Soria in Castile, from 1907, where he met his wife Leonor. Tragically she died very young, and in 1912 he left Soria for Baeza in Andalusia. Loyal to the Republic he left Spain for France when Catalonia fell, and died there in February 1939. He is acknowledged as Spain’s finest poet.
'Wanderer, your footsteps are the road,
and nothing more;
wanderer, there is no road,
the road is made by walking.
By walking one makes the road,
and upon glancing behind one sees the path
that never will be trod again.
Wanderer, there is no road.
Only wakes upon the sea.'
Proverbios y cantares XXIX" [Proverbs and Songs 29], Campos de Castilla (1912); trans. Betty Jean Craige in Selected Poems of Antonio Machado (Louisiana State University Press, 1979)
In re-reading the words of this posting (again) I feel so uplifted. They are still so pertinent and relevant and inspirational.
My most recent aid has been provided by my wife Sylvia via my Christmas present from her. ‘ART MEETS ECOLOGY’ a book of paintings by artists, The Arborealists, who met and painted in Lady Park Wood which is a mature stand of beech, sessile oak, ash, small and large leaved lime, hazel, yew and many other native trees and shrub species. It occupies a spectacular position on the steep sides of the Wye gorge downstream from Symonds Yat, just over a hill and valley or two from where I live. Their individual responses are related and their works illustrated, in a thought provoking presentation which celebrates a synthesis of art with ecology.
The relevance of this publication to my own journey is that it takes me back to one of the main reasons I started life-drawing. After I retired in 2004 I started to bring together the research (historical and archaeological) we had carried out into our hillfort, and felt it would be good to illustrate the text with some visuals of the place. I wanted to capture the ambiance, the spirit, the feeling of the place, which to so many who visit here is often described as ‘magical’. The ramparts of the hill fort are massed with trees, so trees would inevitably feature strongly in my work. I started to do a few sketches. I soon became aware that the sort of drawing that was needed, the way of approaching drawing, could be very different to any sort of drawing I had previously done as a student architect, a practitioner architect, or as an academic architect. What to do? Go back to basics, to the fundamentals of doing drawing. And where does this take place? What is the starting point of all great art movements? What is the first set of exercises in all art and design courses? It is the drawing of the human nude! So I started attending life-drawing classes. Went through quite a number before I found the best. But guess what? I got so hooked on life-drawing and did not draw a tree (well, not many) for 16 or so years. I did start an A4 sketch book with some early sketches, but the real benefit that these years of life-drawing has provided is that I am now 'skilled' and I am now 'confident' when drawing. I can now respond to anything with no constraints or hang-ups. I just do it, with spirit. What appears on my paper comes from the deep dialogue between me (the artist) and my subject (my muse). My long association with my hill will allow it also to become my muse.
Postscript
How do I now see the role of drawing in my life?
The following are from my latest notebook and seem relevant to the next steps of my journey (sincere apologies for one or two possible slight plagiaristic anomalies. Acknowledgements can be found in my notebooks):
‘If a day goes by where I haven’t done something related to drawing, it is as if I’ve overlooked something essential. It’s like I forgot to wake up’
‘I am not drawing what I am looking at. I am searching for what I am seeing. In the end, drawing helps me see what I am looking at’
‘My drawings of the nude, people say, are peculiar to me. This is because we do not see things as they are, we see things as we are.’ I cannot wait for the rain to stop so that I can see what appears in my sketch book when I get out on to the hill.
‘I take delight and pleasure in the act of life-drawing. I possess it, and benefit from it.’ Now for the hill, to reap the benefits.
‘The process of drawing results equally in a drawing of process. As my project evolves I expect my drawings to record my changing perceptions of the hill as I get closer to its sense of place and its spirit.’ It will be fascinating to discover how changes in perception can be revealed by, or in, a drawing.
At the start Evan asked: Do we have anything left to give, to say of significance. How many are just living out their time? What do we all spend our minds thinking about?”
Well, I think I have answered that. And within that answer I did say I was missing debate. But for the time being I am living off my self-questioning and futures building. However my public blog provides a connection with others although I have always seen it as firstly a diary, and secondly a conversation with myself during which I stand outside myself and look in. In fact I have claimed that I am a student of my own art. Yet Paul Fowler (my mentor, and creator of ‘Extreme Poses’ in Stroud, i.e. The Best) in referring to my blog has suggested that my conversation (within my blog) is actually with my models, without directly addressing them face to face. He and I discussed this further. Paul suggested specifically there are two current female models, with whom has evolved a deep two way dialogue. So my drawings are not of them, in the traditional life-drawing sense, rather they say a lot about me and the nature of the dialogue we share. Now for the hill.
Bob Fowles, Gaer Fawr Hillfort [12.01.2023]
www.bobfowleslifedrawing1.blogspot.co.uk
