We are getting back to studio based sessions but there is clearly a certain amount of ‘social hesitancy’ which means that we still have studio spaces left. We also have a certain amount of ‘organiser’s hesitancy’ too in that we are half braced for another lockdown! The past eighteen months have seen all of us put in place plans which have been cruelly disrupted, in ways which don’t always seem to follow logic, which makes it impossible for us to second guess what the next measure will be. We will be proceeding on the assumption that things are getting back to normal but as we’ve hopefully shown so far, we will adapt to whatever gets thrown at us. Art will happen.
Given that we have spaces in the studio for many of our offerings, can a make a case for working together from a life model?
Whilst we love Zoom and will continue to use it for the foreseeable future, there is no doubt that for a draughtswoman, there are benefits to be reaped from working directly from the model. When we work from life we have to analyse the entire visual space in three dimensions and pull from it the information we want to work with. When working from Zoom some of this is done for us, which is nice but it does mean that we are arguably not training our ‘eye’ to the same extent.
The intensity of the visual experience is greater in the flesh, there is a lot going on visually and indeed viscerally, sometimes overwhelmingly so, which gives us something substantial to chew on as artists.
Being with humanity in a shared space connects us with ourselves and others in a different way, makes us more alive to the moment, raising consciousness in a way that positively impacts our work.
Then of course there are the other artists and as we know, artists are excellent people to spend time with.
