I enjoyed Laura Vandenburgh’s presentation in class on Tuesday. She made drawing sound much more common and universal than the way I have perceived it for the last, I don’t know, maybe my whole life! I have always said, “I’m not a drawer or drafter or whatever the word is. I can’t do it and I don’t know how to say it.” (You know, because that is a really awkward word to say out loud, drawer; besides, it’s also one of those things in your dresser. I am totally digressing.) Anyway, as Laura said, everyone draws. I shyly admitted to myself that I actually agree. I have doodled many, many times. I guess I have tried to fool myself into thinking that I’m not truly drawing by doodling mostly block letters, but then I always have to embellish them in some way. That’s drawing.
Laura also helped me expand my definition of drawing by presenting versions of drawing that are completely outside the box. Forming shapes in space with wire? I would have thought of this as sculpture! Arranging scraps of paper with notes on them in a geometric pattern? I would have called that a collage! Casting a shadow on the wall with a pile of garbage? I don’t know WHAT I would have named that artform! But it was amazing! As Ms. Vandenburgh said, It’s not so clear where those boundaries are drawn. She believes that those things I mentioned can be considered drawing as opposed to sculpture or something else because it gives the viewer something to think about , as drawing does, rather than presenting a completed object that just defines itself for the viewer.
I think my favorite piece in the presentation was the Wall of Notes. I loved it. First I loved the way it looked, especially that all the white and off-white papers were grouped together with the bright colorful papers juxtaposed next to them. The contrast was striking. Also it struck me that there were equal amounts of each category of papers. I’m a Virgo, so this seemed like the kind of thing I would have done if I had thought of it. It immediately inspired me to create a number of similar pieces of art. Lastly, I have to say that upon learning that these notes were written between a hearing and a deaf person made me love it even more. I used to know a deaf person, and I spent many hours communicating with her. So the “drawing” (or collage, if you’re me) brought up my connection with Ethel. It also was just warming to learn that it was a piece of the artist’s personal life.
This new way of defining drawing helped me see how Margaret Kilgallen’s paintings are just really big drawings done very carefully with paint. Painting can be just like drawing the way she approaches it. It’s not like a painting in which every square inch of canvas is covered with paint and all the lines cover each other up. At first I wasn’t sure how I felt about Kilgallen’s art. I liked the idea of it. Bring an indoor art form outdoors. Focus on the female hero. Use colors that were typically used in the original form of the art that inspired her. I liked all of those things, and the way she presented the works, but I just don’t like the look of the people she paints. It’s partly their large lips, but that’s not exactly it. Just the style of their look. I don’t know how to put it into words, but anyway, that doesn’t take too much away from being able to appreciate the feeling Kilgallen‘s art provokes.
I find the story of her death so sad and moving. I can just see her husband taking his little infant with him to spray-paint the sadness away on the side of a train. That sounds silly, but in my head it’s much more tragic.
Sometimes it’s hard to draw a boundary between art forms, as Vandenburgh demonstrated with drawing and potential sculpture. It is also demonstrated by Kilgallen whose paintings greatly resemble drawing. I think that was basically the point of the founders of each new art movement through the last few centuries. That’s the main thing I learned from the “Art Theory for Beginners” excerpt. Each era found a new way of challenging the dominant definition of art. Picasso incorporated collage into his painting, Pollack abandoned the paintbrush altogether and used objects such as a stick to apply the paint to the canvas, and others tried to see how far they could go and still call their “creation” art, such as the urinal that Duchamp signed with a pseudonym. I guess each artist needs to define for him or herself exactly what makes art. I think at this point that an artist needs to challenge, not only society’s idea of what art is, but reach beyond his or her own boundaries of defining art.
A funny, quirky, thoughtful and well-written post. Well done on all levels. Perhaps a bit more discussion of the reading, but overall it was very well done.
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