Drawing Session #1
"Drawings are not about you, they are about themselves"
—Al De Credico, 1994
A few days ago, I woke up with the idea to host drawing nights with friends. As a kid I drew every single day; each drawing, sketch, or doodle was an observation, meditation, or journal entry. Of course, eventually, the computer and smartphone changed our relationship to our senses, time, and mark-making. Being years out of practice, I felt the need to return to the tactile and exploratory experience.
I invited photographer Erika Dufour to the first night. To loosen things up and prime the canvas, so to speak, I recounted stories about drawing assignments from my early art school days. From contour line drawings, blind drawings, timed drawings, drawings with constraints, deconstruction and reassembly, use of unconventional materials, sites, sounds, and so on. Some of the more unusual exercises I recalled—for example, “make a drawing in the shower”—were unorthodox, mind-bending assignments concocted by professor Al De Credico. These projects would break down the hardest ego and open up a student’s ability to tap deeper into their well of creative abilities. These were monumental lessons in improvisation and generative thinking, anchored in the humble practice of “drawing” that allows the quietly liminal, the unexpected, and the radical to be more possible.
We started modestly with a light hand, narrating our own actions to each other. We followed strict parameters: drawings were executed in short, timed intervals, swapped at each round and drawn over in subsequent rounds. As we completed our first timed drawing sessions, we could feel the discomfort rise in our minds and muscles ... we were literally sweating while drawing! Each turn led to the next drawing proposition, along with a dose of permission. Despite the self doubt and awkwardness bubbling up at each turn, as workout buddies do, we pushed ourselves out of our comfort zones to persist, to look and think obliquely.
Erika and I produced a handful of these drawing sessions for video. The resulting time lapse video offers a play-by-play voiceover calling out our impromptu, and often absurd decisions and a funny recap of some of our discoveries.
