that drawing thing

I’ve written and spoken several different times about the exchange visit to Joshibi, but there’s one bit that always seems to get overlooked: the two mornings I spent in the painting department.

One of the problems about writing about it 7 months later is that I deliberately did not keep any of my work – once again I wanted the emphasis to be more on the way I was working rather than what I produced.

The only documentation I have of that time is a handful of photographs – most of them quite blurry.

Day 1: Looking

The first day was a really welcomed opportunity to just be in a new space and look. And then look some more.

It was great: everything from the paint splodges on the floor to the quick sketches of my hosts as they worked or chatted.

I taped one of my drawings of paint splodges to the floor next to the original. I wonder how long they both stayed there for?

Day 2: Collecting

On the second day I felt the need to gather things together a bit. I wasn’t sure, but I suspected this was going to be my last session in this space, so I wanted to collate stuff into a mini-project of sorts. So, that’s what I did: collate.

I spent a long time moving around the studio looking at the all the unfinished canvases on the easels. For each painting I found a line or a detail that I found interesting and I drew that out of context of the rest of the painting.

On returning to my own easel, I then collated these stolen fragments into a composition of my own. I didn’t talk to anyone about what I was doing. I wonder if anyone recognised any of their own work?