Smudging & Scratching & Dancing in Coils
Smudging & Scratching & Dancing in Coils
On Saturday 6th March I held a drawing event at Fabrica, in collaboration with the dancer Marina Tsartsara and Michael Maydon who collects home movies from 20s - 60's as well as many 16mm & 8mm projectors on which he shows them. It was part of Brighton's Adult Learning Festival, the funding achieved from the council by Lisa Finch.
After the surprising inundation of people at the white night drawing event last October I over bought paper and charcoal - just in case. However we had a good number of people about 150 over the four hours and didn't run out of anything including floor space. I was amazed to see how people arrived collected materials and then moved into any space left available, to work elbow to elbow with complete strangers with such generosity.
It seemed that everyone who came joined in the spirit of sharing and working together. People drew Marina as she danced tirelessly for four hours, they drew the movies being shown in all different directions and also each other, because the groups sitting drawing on the floor were huddled in Goyaresque fashion illuminated by the strange light emitted by the flickering projectors.
I enjoy running this format of event because the mix of people is so varied, some confident professional artists, others drawing for the first time in years and children who will usually take the opportunity to draw in any situation.
The twilight of a film showing is a very good light in which to work with lots of other people, it gives you a kind of solitude but doesn't cut you off. You can concentrate but it prevents too much editing of the drawing process, it's all about grabbing ideas and moments when you see something incredible.
In my workshops I favour putting several elements together and then letting them evolve and change it always produces unexpected unplanned things. The way Marina engaged a child in a mirrored dance was one of these, they danced as one communicating through movement and people drew them. A child wearing a padded Spiderman outfit moved in Marina's silhouette on the other side of one screen without her even knowing it, he was a small solid counterbalance to her lithe slow motion, a strange sight to see the miniature version of a muscled superhero dwarfed by an elegant female shape.
It's when I stand in a room full of people drawing at an event like this that I'm able to begin thinking about the next. There's so much scope to develop situations in which people can explore drawing, working next to each other and the stimulus to spark it all off. I love doing this.