Old Drawing

So as I mentioned in the last post I am at a bit of a cross roads in my work. In fact I put away most of the unfinished drawings and am starting to think about and make some sculpture. I had this old drawing hanging around, its probably 12 years old. I hadn't looked at it in a while and assumed it wasn't finished. I put it up on the wall and realized that yes it is finished , as in there is nothing I could do to make this drawing better. It was interesting to see how the color was very much more limited and almost tonal compared to my recent work. I was interested to see the shape I drew on the right hand side. I had been working on the seven Chakra drawings for some time, I used what I knew about the colors and the anatomy to try and come up with my own interpretation, of each Chakra. After finishing them I started a workshop specifically about the Chakras. So far we have done the first through third. As  organs of the body play a huge part in my work I wanted to locate the chakras correctly, with the first series of drawing I assumed that the first chakra, the root chakra was located in the rectum. I also assumed the second one was located in the genital area and I know the third chakra was located on the solar plexus.

What I learned from the three in depth workshops on the chakras, is that I was all wrong about the location of the first and second chakras. Although I must mention here that there is no way to actually find a chakra, like an organ. They are rather more like the aura, energetic parts of the spiritual body, they are spinning disks located at points half in and half out of the body. Anyway I learned that the first chakra , the root chakra is located in the vagina in women and the testicles in men. The second chakra is located in the prostrate gland in men and the ovaries in women, You will see in this drawing, that I have created the perfect combination of sexual organs , its the male and female genitals combined.

After writing this post and doing another workshop, I realize I was totally incorrect in this post. The root Chakra is located at the bottom of the spine. I can't imagine how I got it so wrong. The second chakra is located in the sacrum. I was trying to find the exact location because when I do drawings of the chakra's I want to know exactly where they are located so I can draw these organs. Where exactly is the base of the spine or the sacrum? I do get the solar plexus. I do find it interesting that these bottom three chakras are not as clearly located as the top four , which are heart , throat, third eye and crown of the head. Why is that? 

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Sculptural leanings

When I was young I didn't see a division between 2D and 3D. I used to draw and make things out of stuff that was around and lots of plasticine. When I went to do my Fine Arts degree at Trent Poly I learned there was a Painting Department and a Sculpture Department that were separate. I did actually cross over spending two years as a "painter" and my last year in the Sculpture Department. This was a highly suspect thing to do and much advised against. I got interested in installations doing my M.F.A. at R.I.S.D., this seemed like the perfect marrying of the two, but so does just doing both. At various times I have focused on one or the other disciplines. I seem to be coming to the end of a six year stint of drawing. I am itching to make some things again, but I find myself feeling fearful. What exactly am I afraid of? maybe failing? I am not sure. I just know I am doubting my skills, I seem to have forgotten how to weld and really can seem to remember how to put things together. So I know I just have to dive in. This is a perfect time to have a break in my studio. I am going to Dorset to see my Mum for a couple of weeks. Hopefully I will get refreshed and return ready to play sculpture in my studio.

I am including a picture of a recent drawing in one of its many stages. I know that many people think my drawings are paintings. Because I use so many techniques like collage as in this example, I can only think that these are drawings.

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Exception to the rule

Well. I get done with one drawing thinking about how the glow of finishing a piece doesn't really help with the next drawing. Except this time it did! 

I was working on this drawing for ages, it was the last of the hanging man series. It went through many stages , lately a dragon phase, that I just couldn't shake. I decided to see if I could finish it by following the piece called "Creation" . So I decided to do a similar set of things and hey presto, it was done. the only thing was, I had to turn it upside down for it to be really finished. I don't think this has ever happened before quite so easily

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Layering

My work seems to be getting more complex in a way. I  start a drawing with not much idea of where it will go. There is such a joy when I finish a piece that I foolishly think it will help with the next piece, but no its back to square one. Today I have been working on the last of the hanging man series of three drawing I started a while ago.. I did decide to follow the lead of the finished drawing now called "Creation", I will show a working drawing in this post. I used the DNA collage idea, then painted over it with a deep magenta. I also added two more babies and the connection to the lilac swirl. Still not sure if it will be done, but I had to take a break .Tomorrow I will see if its really finished.

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How meditation is like art

The one thing that meditation, art making and love have in common is that they cannot be forced. Love is something that comes by itself, of its own volition. One can create the space for meditation to happen, but to dictate that meditation will happen is impossible.​

With art there is a similar thing. I can make a drawing: I can keep changing it until all the things that are wrong suddenly go away, and it's then a good drawing, that's also finished. Often that process is frustrating and involves me trying many options, sometimes I get to a point where I cannot see a way forward. Then maybe I will come to my studio the next day and with three or four manipulations it will be done. I know this sounds ridiculous but its as though suddenly the drawing has a soul, I can see energy in the piece ,this energy, the energy of completion wasn't there the previous day.​

​There is no explanation for this; I simply do not understand it. It is certainly beyond my control. It is quite simple, either a drawing has this, and looking at it will lift me or the drawing is not finished and it will make me think how every part of it looks wrong.

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Compexity and Simplicity

I want to address the crucial part of making work. Knowing when to stop , when its right. When the drawing magically goes from everything being wrong to everything being right.Even the viewer who may be unskilled in art can tell when a piece of work is right. I have been pondering this question for a while. This week I watched a documentary "Gerhard Richter Painting". He describes halfway through exactly what this issue is about.I will quote what he said , although it was translated from German.​

"I can smear anything I want onto a canvas'

"Then there is a condition I must react to"​

"Something happens spontaneously. Not by itself but without plan or reason'​

"The question is you paint without a plan, but you know exactly when its right"​

"Each step forward is more difficult and I feel less and less free, until I conclude there's nothing left to do. When according to my standard nothing is wrong anymore then I stop. This is good."​

"It is extremely difficult"

" It is"​

​It is so brilliant to hear another artist articulate exactly how making art is for me. I include two drawings the first is a drawing that I tried to convince myself was finished. I ended up cutting it into eight pieces. The second drawing takes the upper left quadrant of the unfinished drawing that I then finished today. I want to show how you will recognize which one is right and which one is wrong

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Thoughts

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Lately I have been think a lot about two things , firstly Picasso said that for him making work was like keeping a diary. Then I just finished a book  called "Where'd you go Bernadette"  by Maria Semple, in it she describes an architect who designs two houses , wins a MacArthur Genius Grant  and then goes to pieces after one of the houses is destroyed. In the book there is this idea that unless artists create , they become a menace to society.  I think of how many women have historically had to squash their creativity, and how I start to feel if I don't get in the studio. I think Picasso's statement is also very true, when I look through my old sketchbooks I get an insight into my thought processes of the time.

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I am trying to move on from the Chakra series. I am working on some drawings that have not reached completion. The series of three drawings I did about the Hanging Man , the only successful one was called "In the Blink of an Eye". The other two I have cut apart and attached to pieces of paper. It has made me think of breaking apart the fabric of the universe. We all think of this visible reality as the only one. The Aborigines have the idea of the Dream-time, so that this reality is the not as important. I have had some dreams where I see the fabric of this world breaking apart.

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The work continues

 After finishing my Chakra series, I am back to trying to complete all the other ongoing drawings. I am also considering going back to the Chakra idea and maybe try to do a drawing that encompasses the lower three chakras and maybe the upper three, not sure where the heart Chakra would fit.

I finished this diptych today. I am trying to figure out what its about. I  know the left side is a group of people gathered, using their energy moving through their heart Chakras to send healing to the United States of America. This is something I participated in around the time of the Obama reelection. The right side is about exploring the chambers of the heart. This is a big old heart with a large tree of love growing out of it, it needs a special golden key to open its chambers.

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Chakra Drawings- all the chakras

I started these two drawings before the series of 7 chakra drawings was started.However I ​just couldn't finish them after the initial start. I usually begin in ink and the drawing will develop from there. I kept putting them up , trying to finish them and would end up taking them down. About 8 months later when I finished the series of 7 chakra drawings I again put them up. This time I seemed to be able to move ahead. What is interesting to me is that the two are male and female, but they need to go together , not as a diptych but as one piece that needs about 4 inches of space between them. At first I had the male piece on the right, but it seems better with the male piece on the left. I was wondering afterwards about the right and left side of the brain. The left side is considered to be the male side.

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Seventh Chakra- Crown

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I thought I's better finish this series, using sketches from my sketchbook , even though I have already posted about the seventh chakra, because I finished this drawing first. Let me say a little about the process. Initially I disliked this drawing the most, I will often start by using pen and ink. In a way to dislike a drawing is freeing, there is no "Oh but I like that bit" to cling onto. This is probably why I was able to finish this so quickly. Underneath all the finished drawing was an octopus, that mostly disappeared by the end. I was thinking of the newly discovered "God Particle" for the gold part of the brain. here are some drawings that were useful along the way.

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