[NetBehaviour] Learn To Draw

Mon Jan 16 20:29:12 CET 2012

Of course this is an argument that's been going on for a long time. 
Stating it the way you do here, I agree that everyone, and everyone's work, should be valued.
What turns us on, what excites us, what broadens and deepens our perception of reality, what makes us consider why we believe in this and not in that---that, I suggest, is valuable. 

-Joel
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Simon Biggs 
  To: NetBehaviour for networked distributed creativity 
  Sent: Monday, January 16, 2012 10:57 AM
  Subject: Re: [NetBehaviour] Learn To Draw

  Ummm, yes - but I am not arguing that everyone is the same (which isn't the same as equal). We are all different. I am arguing that the problem is with our perception of value.

  best

  Simon

  On 16 Jan 2012, at 18:41, Simon Mclennan wrote:

    I like a lot of this stuff you say Simon,
    However, have you ever read the short story by Kurt Vonnegut entitled "Harrison Bergeron", from  his collection - Welcome To The Monkey House.
    I recommend it hugely. A dystopian satyrical story that made me laugh when I first read it, and still does. It also made me think a bit.

    http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html

    Simon

    On 16 Jan 2012, at 17:08, Simon Biggs wrote:

      Joel

      My partner discusses this a lot. She is what you would call a "gifted" dancer, by any definition, having danced with the Royal Ballet, Merce Cunningham, Rambert and many famous companies and choreographers. If she wished she could present herself as a prima ballerina, but she hates the way dancers are expected to be athletic and able to jump twice as high as other people, whilst also appearing waif-like (although she can do that and is size 0). She argues that dance is dance and we should not be addicted to this idea of the highly trained dancer. Her own choreography post-modern, denying the athletic and highly aesthetic, making works where repetition of every day activities (like standing up and sitting down or opening a door) make up a lot of the material. The point of such work is to critique traditional dance values and propose that anything can be dance (and by extension, anybody can be a dancer) and that such practices are just as valuable as any other. In this outlook, which I agree with 100%, the notion of "gifted" simply doesn't exist. Indeed, the idea of "gifted" is critiqued as part of a process of fetishisation and Fordist professionalisation of creative activities that are currently the preserve of an elite but should be in the daily life of everyone.

      So, in short, my response to your statement about "gifted" artists is that you are allowing your bourgeois attitudes to show (no insult intended).

      Read Tim Ingold on creativity as a shared social activity. He totally destroys the dominant logic of the art world and its hierarchical structures without needing to invoke political diatribe. Ingold simply writes about people and their activities after having watched them, as an anthropologist, for the last 50 years. He studies societies where professional artists or sports people do not exist and he is thus able to evidence what art and sport can be about when they haven't been corrupted, as they have in our competitive and cruel society.

      best

      Simon

      On 16 Jan 2012, at 15:35, Joel Weishaus wrote:

        Simon;

        I agree that everyone can do something--I think that's what Beuys meant---, but I am talking about the "gifted" artist.
        Just like everyone with a "normal" body can run, but very few can reach the Olympics, no matter how hard they train.

        -Joel     
          ----- Original Message -----
          From: Simon Biggs
          To: Joel Weishaus ; NetBehaviour for networked distributed creativity
          Sent: Monday, January 16, 2012 1:03 AM
          Subject: Re: [NetBehaviour] Learn To Draw

          I don't agree with the "natural talent" argument. I'm a nurture, not nature, person. Having taught art for almost as long as I've professionally made it (over 30 years) I've observed the variations in ability of students. I've also observed how much that ability is measured against fixed definitions of what is good or bad art. Most of the time it has been those definitions that caused the issues for the student, not their ability. Everybody has what it takes to be an artist (Beuys was right on that) because it is a simple twist of the human condition to become one - and we are all human. The question is whether you are willing to make that twist and for others to be generous enough to recognise what you have done. That doesn't make you a good artist - but the good vs bad argument is a separate matter.

          best

          Simon

          On 16 Jan 2012, at 00:31, Joel Weishaus wrote:

            Hi Simon;

            I agree with you, up to a point. And that is, in every art, there is always the mystery of talent. Some have it; others, no matter how hard they work, never will be "gifted."    

            -Joel
              ----- Original Message -----
              From: Simon Biggs
              To: NetBehaviour for networked distributed creativity
              Sent: Sunday, January 15, 2012 10:17 AM
              Subject: Re: [NetBehaviour] Learn To Draw

              LOL.

              Learning to draw is not a technical skill, although some people want you to believe it is. Learning to draw, in the first instance, requires learning how to look at things very intensely and carefully, understanding line, shade, volume, atmospherics, etc. You can't learn that from a book. You have to immerse yourself in looking at things - flowers, bodies, trees, hills, clouds, etc. Go and look at hundreds, even thousands, of artists pictures, preferably for real (books rarely do them justice and the web is n extremely poor simulation). Get a sense of the relationship between what the artist was seeing, in their mind's eye, and their method of execution. Place the work in its historical and cultural context. Seek to understand drawing as a discursive activity, between the artist and the context they are working in. This is also very important to understanding why a drawing is what it is - why a Japanese line drawing is so different to a Medieval illustration or a Pollock. Then hang out with your peers who are also developing these capabilities, sharing ideas, methods, philosophies, etc. Practicing as an artist, as this list proves, is about being with others, engaged in discourse. Drawing is just another form of that - often enmeshed with other media and forms of communication, from arguing to books, to playing music together. It is rarely something you can do alone or in isolation. Expect the learning process to be long and slow. Many people never learn, I think mainly because they lack the patience to look at things long and hard enough to break the inertia of our normal ways of seeing things.

              BTW, here's a drawing my son did when he was about 8. It is qualitatively different to anything he had done till then. We were on        holiday staying in a remote cottage. It rained very heavily all day so we couldn't go out. I asked him to look at the flowers for a few hours before starting the drawing and to then take his time with it when he did. I gave him no other advice or aid. It took him the whole day but evidences how he looked at something and translated that to paper. The main thing was that it looked like nothing he had done before. By looking long and hard he transcended himself. That's what drawing is about and why you can't learn it from a manual.

              best

              Simon

      Simon Biggs
      simon at littlepig.org.uk http://www.littlepig.org.uk/ @SimonBiggsUK skype: simonbiggsuk

      s.biggs at ed.ac.uk Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh
      http://www.eca.ac.uk/circle/ http://www.elmcip.net/ http://www.movingtargets.co.uk/

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  Simon Biggs
  simon at littlepig.org.uk http://www.littlepig.org.uk/ @SimonBiggsUK skype: simonbiggsuk

  s.biggs at ed.ac.uk Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh
  http://www.eca.ac.uk/circle/ http://www.elmcip.net/ http://www.movingtargets.co.uk/

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