Dear Friends and Art Lovers
I know sometimes I may seem weird but perhaps the logic of what I am going to share with you will shed light on my particular brand of weird.
Recently I have been attending a life drawing group. Life drawing is a practice that has stayed with me since art school . In those days all you could hear in these sessions were pencils scratching on paper and the occasional sigh of elation or frustration . The various groups I have attended since have had a similar level of intensity.
When I first attended this current life drawing group, the interaction, sharing and chatter was a distraction to me. With the addition of music as part of the experience and the energy it can distill I found it even more difficult to focus on the life models and my efforts to 'transcend' and capture them in pencil on paper. The other participants seem to enjoy sharing their progress in the class and inevitably I feel an expectation to share my drawings as well, but I don't feel a need to. Not out of shyness or spite but because I am attempting to build my own space, a bubble of my own responses and interpretations, free from the influence of others. You see it is the experience of being lost in drawing that I crave.
Despite these challenges I am softening. I have managed to adjust to the smell of the building and the lighting. Though I still do not walk around and look at other peoples sketches and I don't yet feel the need to share mine. Who knows one day perhaps I will.
Warm regards,
Nadina
