It’s a simple plan…
2019 is already half over and I’m on track with two straight forward goals.
First… Ive been feeling a growing need to work towards a new mode of ideation, moving away from an exclusively functional based mode of thinking and more towards a figurative influence, specifically, working collaboratively with models to build compositions. Initially, being completely unfamiliar with working with models, the only way that I felt that I would be able to work with a live model was to be part of a life drawing group. Unfortunately there weren’t any local groups that were open to the public. All the opportunities were behind the barricades of higher education. Now, with the Stockton Art League generously giving us access to their space, we’re 9 months into successfully running our own group. Generally consisting of 6 to 10 at any given session, it meets 3 times a month at the gallery and so far the biggest complaint is that we’re not meeting more often.
Second… through out 2019, I’ve made it a point to sit down and sketch at least one figure drawing a day for a year, fast, slow, good, bad, whatever, just sit down and do it. A special emphasis is being put on learning to become loosely fluent in hands, feet, and faces. The hope is to take that developing fluency cross media to painting and printmaking and possibly back across to ceramics.
Admittedly, when I hear myself reading this out loud, it doesn’t sound very broadly ambitious, but it’s been a life long dream to learn to confidently, if not competently, work with the figure on paper.
As it’s happening, I’m finding myself coming to terms with how that actually shows up. Its all to easy to inadvertently find myself comparing my own progress against the established skills of others. From this close up it just looks chaotic and messy. It’s not easy to see the progress or spot the patterns emerge until I step away and look back.
The whole thing really is rather messy and rough, but it feels really good to be finally making a go of this.
Zygote Blum 