That's Life (Go Figure)

"That's Life," as in, Life Drawing this semester: I love figure drawing for the same reason I like to see and hear live music - it comes alive. It's like a free form jazz session, solo improvisation on paper. The whole art-is-a-verb-not-a-noun thing when you simply create just to see what happens, to experiment making marks, play with time and materials, like the side of a chunk of charcoal and graphite stick instead of a line with the point. Or ganging a sequence of gestures together in one composition. These shapes, the forms, the lines... you simply can't get anywhere else by any other means.

The intuitive process of trying to draw action and imply motion through reflexive, spontaneous action and motion on the part of the hand and eye of an artist. Experiencing the perceptual expansion of time when the poses shift from 30-second gestures into an entire, full minute, then doubling it again to a whopping TWO minutes leaves one feeling keenly attuned to all the innumerable and subtle motions that continually unfold around us.

Too often do I delve into the imagination and focus entirely on the page before me: the shift in energy that clicks into gear when lifting up one's gaze to instead tap into events and actions all around us isn't just a great drawing exercise, it's a dynamic connection to life itself. As in, "That's Life."