Joseph-Benoît Suvée,
The Invention of Drawing, c. 1791. Black and whitechalk on brown paper
This blog was initially set up in
order to promote work done within the Fine Art Drawing Strand of the Leeds
College of Art BA Fine Art drawing program. It was designed to provide a forum
for the discussion of issues related to drawing as a discrete practice. However
things change, the Leeds College of Art is now Leeds Arts University, which in
essence means that it can now award its own degrees. The BA Fine Art course no
longer has a discrete drawing strand, drawing is now regarded as a possible way
of solving problems amongst many others, and is subsumed as part of a general
fine art course that allows students to make videos, put on performances, paint
paintings, do site specific installations, conduct web art projects, create
text pieces, make sculpture by carving, modelling or constructing etc. etc.
As of the 31st of July 2023 I retire from work at Leeds Arts University and my posts will therefore no longer be targeted at students. However I will still post my thoughts and opinions in relation to my continuing art practice and ongoing research into certain aspects of drawing and perception.
So why still a blog on drawing? Art
has a long history and part of the business of being an artist is to find some
sort of thread by which you can attach yourself to that history and drawing can
be a very strong thread. But there is a much more important reason and that is
that drawing is itself a metaphor for a materialist approach to thinking.
I strongly believe that we need to
move away from the idea that drawing is about a medium. Yes we often begin by using
a pencil or chalks to draw with, but we can also draw with a computer or mime a
shape in thin air. If instead we look at drawing as an activity or process,
this changes things and we can see that it is about a particular type of non-verbal
and non-numerical thinking.
If we begin with a simple point and a line,
that simple point could be a small stone on the ground or a star in the sky, it
is a method of defining a starting point. A line can move away from that point
and as it does it indicates direction and a linking of one point to another, as
well as dividing one side of the line off from another side. Here we have the
line as a boundary, an idea that links it to map making, the ability to
separate one form from another, to be able to compare distances and or
closeness of things and to indicate both ownership, (by enclosure or
measurement) and our own position in space. From this basic set of concepts
many actions arise. For instance sewing, or threading lines, this process can
lead to the development of lines into planes, but also can be seen as a way of
knotting or weaving ideas or thoughts together. All ideas need materials to
make them real, so a line that is also a length of string, or a thread can make
some ideas come into fruition in a different way to a line made by walking
through long grass or by incising into rock.
Drawing also has a very useful habit
of getting around the stickiness of words. Words can tend to identify things,
but in fact things as such don’t really exist, there is only a constant process
of change. What a word does is slow time down. For instance, this bottle I have
in front of me has a name, it is a ‘glass bottle’, two words that tell me about
what it is made from and what its possible function might be. But at some point
not too long ago the glass might have been sand on a beach, the paper that
tells me it contains orange juice may well have been part of a tree or a cotton
rag and I may use the bottle in the very near future as a protruding eye in a
sculpture I am making. A drawing is something that helps me both think about what
I’m experiencing and experience it. This thinking through drawing is what this blog
tries to focus on. It also points you in the direction of current drawing
exhibitions, asks questions as to why we think about drawing in the various
ways that we do, tries to explore the limits of drawing within a contemporary context,
such as where is the line between drawing and film-making or drawing and
painting. It looks at how other professions use drawing, such as archaeologists
or crime scene investigators and it tries to develop a moral framework within
which drawing might become a useful tool for the understanding of those bigger
questions, such as how should we relate to each other and the world around us?
There is often a lack of logic to be
found in these posts but that is part of the point of the process of keeping
the blog. The threads woven by these various posts will fall apart if they are
not woven together and in order to weave them together sometimes they need to
cross over or under each other in unpredictable ways or link with unexpected
other threads to produce a texture that is unique to this particular woven cloth.
I will attempt to post at least once a week, but will of course sometimes fail
to do that. Feel free to contact me, I can be e mailed at garrybarker69@gmail.com, some of my
current academic work can still be seen at the Leeds Arts University Repository (click 'Browse by Author' button top right). I use Twitter sometimes, Instagram and Facebook
but am not a fan of any online platform. I am a firm believer in
W B Yates’ “I made it out of a mouthful of air”, a statement that shows that he
both understood media specificity and the fact that we never know what we are
going to do until we have done it. This being something that can apply to a
drawing as much as to a conversation, especially a conversation understood as a
drawing. Which is where my own drawing practice begins.
Garry Barker: Entrusted with Carnival Business
The following are useful links and these will be added to:
Mr.Barker, I have enjoyed your blog, it's very useful! How can I subscribe, so I don't miss a post? Thank you, Pam Stephan
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