My life-drawing in its context

 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

Have you noticed how long Durer's fingers are?

One of the frequent comments that colleagues make when looking at my drawings is something like, "Ooooooh, you are good at hands and feet". I'm not sure why it is that I have come to engage with hands, and perhaps more particularly feet. In most life-drawings it is the overall form and gesture of the pose which has attracted the artist. But every so often one comes across artists who celebrate their engagement with extremities of the body. 

Albrecht Durer's drawings whether silverpoint, etchings, preparations for copperplate, have always held a fascination for me, and became particularly of interest when I started to engage with line drawing and my two-handed fine-liner pen work.

My A5 Notebook collection includes quotes and references to artists whose work I relate to at different times, together with quick sketches of a particular pose in a studio I am visiting, plus doodles and notated reminders of drawings I have come across which seem important to me. There are also a few quick self portraits.

Yesterday I was looking through some Durer drawings and came across this early self-portrait with hand. 

And was instantly reminded that I had something similar. So I thumbed back thro' my last two Notebooks and this is what I came up with.

The hand is quite recent as I have a bandage on a finger which I cut and it refused to stop bleeding. But the main reason for drawing my hand was to record the Dupuytren's growth up across the palm and into the second finger. The self portrait was from a photograph taken when I renewed my WBA Season Ticket.

Is this the essence of my process?

 

And, HOW I am seeing it!

And another inspiring model

This time it's Paul Boon, Portrait and Life Model, also at Extreme Poses, on December 15th.

Two inspiring models

November 1st and 8th at Extreme Poses with Shelley and Callie.

Here are my 10 drawings, 5 x 30 minutes from each morning. My conclusion is that these were good mornings for me as I feel the outcomes are pleasing examples of my most recent summary definition of my art, posted on this blog some time ago (with a slight up-dating):

"superimposed images of anatomical parts drawn at different scales, with a palette of sophisticated and diverse mark-making, achieving a high degree of transparency and spatiality, an ingress of cubism, and acquiring compositional integrity"

This definition represents a post-rationalisation of looking back at my past journey, from attempting to stand back from actually doing my art, and trying to place myself outside of myself. Why and How do I do this?  Well, in an earlier existence, I used to think of 'design' as a 'problem solving, goal-oriented activity'. Now, in my new life, I would not refer to life-drawing as 'design'. Also, there is no 'problem' to solve. And furthermore, I never engage with any concept of what the end product might be. In other words there is no physical goal to work towards and to reach. When I enter the dialogue with a model and with a pose, I am entering an exploratory and experimental process, the outcome of which I look forward to standing back from and revealing to myself what has taken place. 

I am now going to add a note to each of the 10 drawings which I hope will hint at the process which took place. My recollection can only touch the surface of my memory, as during most of each 30 minutes I believe I can claim I am in a deep, sub-conscious, meditative and intuitive state, oblivious to my surroundings and with a total lack of interest and concern about what will result on my paper. I know that I inevitably must and do react and respond to aspects of the process as I go along but exactly how, and what these are, I like it all to remain a mystery. So, here are a few of the moments I can actually recall.

Pose Nos 1

I shall start with a Haiku of mine:

Her breast, her knee, her foot, her hand

I greet them all

Into my new assemblage

The diagonal line is one edge of a strap. There is both 'mass' and 'spatiality': she looks into space, and her hand touches the earth.

Pose Nos 2

Sequence: 

foot supported by strap

other foot behind

hands brought down to juxtapose closely with feet.

Pose Nos 3

A frequent form:

morphing of two halves at different scales and different mark-making (tonal and linear)

Pose Nos 4

I instantly wanted to respond to the triangulation of limbs.

Pose Nos 5

I draw at a large scale. So in order to include the full length of the pose I brought the upper and lower together (overlap, superimposing, transparency).

Pose Nos 6

The hand was the first to grab my attention. Then other parts followed in my collage build-up. Finally, the outline of the knee resting on the plinth went in at the last moment. Felt I must include its large exaggerated form thrusting towards me. Fascinating that its outline created a window within the composition which itself focusses attention on the hand.

Pose Nos 7

Again, the bringing together and morphing of two halves. 

Her left side profile went in first, beyond which I could see her left breast and right knee. Her left buttock sits on her left foot.

My cubism caused me to relocate my easel one metre to my right so allowing me to engage with her right side profile and seeing her right breast and again her right knee.

A final addition is the left hand holding on to a strap. This works well: it takes the place of where one would expect to see the head (a part which always attracts attention), and it relates to the other hand which is part of the right side profile drawing and was already included.

Pose Nos 8

A second demand on my ingenuity to move my position during the making of the drawing in order to explore the pose simultaneously from two positions. This results in, for example, the left foot being viewed from both a side elevation and a front elevation.

Pose Nos 9

The theme which resulted here is one of using the left arm a number of times and at different scales to create a diagonal energy to the composition. This, of course, was never an intention, an idea or a compositional concept at the beginning. Neither was it towards the end - it just happened. 

A 'spatiality' enhancement is given to the composition by the inclusion of the hand gripping the strap, at the top, and going in at the last moment. And I like how she appears to be focusing her gaze on this hand, as I am sure most beholders will.

Pose Nos 10

Strap under armpit, the line of the breast, and then the foot, I recall started to suggest a journey up through the drawing. So, I emphasized and enhanced this 'route through the composition' by my placing of the hand holding on to the strap.

Hand and Foot: one hand and two hands.

This is a detail from one of my drawings from the 3 days at Niel Bally's studio over in Talgarth which I talk about in my previous posting.

[please click on it and take a good look]

It represents some aspects of the essence of the art of my mark-making. 

The hand is drawn with graphite pencil and some tonal shading is with charcoal. Firstly the very quick outline is suggested using 2H very light lines. A short length of willow charcoal, on its side, is moved across where darkness is seen, and is caressed and smoothly blended with my forefinger. A 6B graphite pencil then gives emphasis to these tonal areas, and finally the 2H is again picked up to complete the form. All of this mark-making is with my one hand, my (right) dominant hand. It is the product of a one handed drawing technique.

The foot is realised quite differently. This is the product of a two-handed drawing technique (which is now my usual and my comfortable way of seeing) and I have a fine-liner pen in each hand. There are a few very faint and lyrical lines which start my process of engaging the form to the paper. Heavier lines representing the main elements and shapes of the anatomy of the foot then go in. These start with both hands but gradually the dominant hand takes over whilst the pen in my left hand rests its point, unconsciously, on the paper (dots appear as evidence of this contact). This is an important aspect of my drawing process. Although at this stage my left hand is not drawing lines, it is still providing me with a tactile engagement with the surface of the paper, and is still helping my left hand (and so, the right side of my brain) a role in the making of the drawing, and contributes an important role in my holistic process of engaging with spatiality.

As anticipated: three enjoyably thought provoking days.

My previous posting introduced my looking forward to my 3 days over at Niel Bally's studio in Talgarth. I was not let down nor did I disappoint myself.

Niel attracts amazing people. Each reveals their own identity in their individual and provocative responses via a diversity of media. This context helps me to focus on what it is that is particular about my own art, my own process, my own way of seeing.

His studio has an ambiance of light, shared experience and communal endeavor which provokes creative responses to the poses which are each considered and discussed by everyone. Niel himself provides a continuous and exhaustive context of references to examples of the past masters of the art of responding to the human body with displays of images on the walls of his studio and access to a wealth of books on relevant artists:

There was an added bonus! Our model for all three days is Kate. I have had the privilege of drawing Kate over a number of years, and in different venues. With time, a dialogue between artist and model is established. This is a two-way connection. We talk of our shared interests not only in vegetable growing, in permaculture, and in other subjects, but also in the complexities, opportunities, enjoyments when in the life-drawing studio. So, I know Kate, I can look beyond my initial gaze, I am able to connect with her, a dialogue is already established and in place which I can easily latch in to, and freely start, unconstrained to make marks on my paper.

This morning I photographed my drawings and here they are. Lots to say about them, but I will need time in order to descend from the heights of my post-drawing feelings and give a considered self-critical response (So. Watch this space!).

The drawings are posted more or less in sequence in the order they were made. 

-----------------------------------------------

I am now back and will go through each drawing and start writing my thoughts on them.................

Day ONE:

We started off with a number of standing poses of about 5 minutes each. I am deliberately touching the paper lightly with a fine-liner pen in each hand, and not revisiting a line. So what you see is my first touch and first exploratory response. Made the decision to include more than one pose on each A1 paper.

Then Kate reclined in front of a long horizontal mirror:

I can't really recall when this next drawing happened so it may be out of sequence. I was clearly attracted to the advancing foot. But which of the rest is a reflection in the mirror I am unable to say.

Kate then took up a seated pose, and you can see her reflection, and I had fun engaging with arms, legs, hands and feet.

Then back to Kate lying in front of the mirror. I regularly enjoy the challenge of engaging with a long horizontal pose (from left to right) and how to explore this and include it on an A1 portrait format. The pose has to be compressed in someway. Head and shoulders are brought in from the right, and the lower parts of the pose are brought in from the left, and the two overlap and are morphed together. This was the last drawing of the day and I just felt like a change from my purist line drawing approach, so out came the charcoal, and some very speedy graphite pencil hatching.

Day TWO:

Started with one of my usual deconstruction/re-construction games.

Then another mirror reflection drawing.

And again the use of the mirror, with Kate at 90 degrees to the mirror and her head towards me. One can get quite confused when bringing together the main pose with its reflection. Here the lower part of her left leg is a continuation from her left thigh. However, in my confused state I have introduced a bizarre spatial anomaly. It appears that the reflected body in the mirror is projecting its leg towards us. Quite bizarre. Something of a Magritte moment.

There are a number of reflections mixed up with direct images in this more complex construction, all drawn at different scales. So a continuation of recent aspects: overlap, transparency, superimpositioning, morphing, varying scales, spatiality, etc., plus weight of upper body supported by hand on plinth, plus advancing foot with toes to the fore.

And this, I really enjoyed standing back and viewing what I had created. A sort of landscape. A slow drawing, carefully compiled, lines and tonal work considered.

Day THREE:

My drawings from the first two days have their similarities and parallels in my past work. Nothing new really. So it would seem that the advantage (to me) of a third day is that I felt a need to do something different, and perhaps experiment a bit.

In this first drawing of day three I elected to draw the feet and their reflections with fine-liner pens (down the right hand side of the composition) and to contrast this with graphite pencil and charcoal in my exploration of the main body of the pose and its reflection. So two mark-making media in the one drawing. Kate's feet were each resting on a rectangular cushion, and the reflection of these in the mirror set up an interesting series of planes at varying angles. 

Echoes of Matisse, Picasso and Jenny Saville as the pose was explored with charcoal, then rubbed back, then explored again, and again rubbed back, and gradually the various parts of her anatomy moved back and forth until their eventual and acceptable location was found. I guess this process could have been repeated a few more times until a final refined outcome is achieved. 

The last drawing of day two (the landscape) and this next one stand out for me as the highlights of the three days. So, why this one?

To start with (as others remarked) the face is Kate! 

Then I have brought closer together the two halves of the figure. 

Then each half is treated differently. 

Her right side is drawn using graphite pencil and charcoal, whilst her left side uses fine-liner pens. 

I bring up her right leg, from toes to her groin, and superimpose it upon her upper body. 

The whole is fairly carefully considered. 

The outcome is NOT a product of a fairly speedy exploratory, emotive and intuitive and 'meditative' process.

We were getting to the end of day three. About 30 minutes remaining. Kate adjusted her chair position through 90 degrees. I was now viewing her side on. She was sort of resting against the mirror. A 2H graphite pencil in my dominant hand started outlining the form. It grew upwards off the paper. But I wanted to represent the full length and form of the pose. So at a reduced scale I tried again. Even then her knee and left foot could not be included. But whilst doing this smaller version I saw the reflection in the mirror of her hand resting on the arm of the chair. I then returned to the initial figure and put in the chair, which had already been included once. The lines of the frame of the mirror were added. All together an unusual drawing for me, one-handed, singular minimalist lines, but one that added to the diversity of responses in this third and final day.