I do so love books! I love to read them look at them, touch them hold them, make them and now alter them. I am really beginning to fell out a new direction for my work through this assignment. What an amazing byproduct I never expected. It is so difficult to give up control and just go with the flow but the vibe of the group and the intensity of the teacher provides the backdrop for creativity to rock and roll. Visiting artists tonight left me impatient to bolt from the room and get down and dirty with it. the way the sketch booking process informs the work when you mine it for the next right thing to do is directly from Twyla Tharp's Creative Habit which certainly set the tone for this course through its clearly defined structures that surround a habitual studio practice.
The sketch books of Erin Curry(www.erincurry.com) and her wonderful blog was great to see. I use to think blogging was just something else to take me out of the studio, now I see it as a link to being there in communion with other artists. Being in the studio can be a lonely sentence or a magical playground, it has been both for me. These visiting artists reminded me not only of the need to keep on keeping on but also how to keep that fire burning with connections via sketchs and blogging.
See also the deeply grounded drawings of Carrie Smith(www.carriesmith.com) and her excellent use of unbound sketch book held together with binder clips so they can be taken apart for immediate reference. Then we had Margret Ross-Tolbert (www.margretrosstolbert.com) whose quick books document her travels in daily life which brings her to various locales like Blue Springs, FL, Greece and Turkey, over and over again. She reminds me that the only way to improve skill is to keep doing it. Her sketches are beautiful, prolific and ripe with ideas.
As my former professor use to say... Bring the body and the mind will follow, to this I would add with the spirit in tow.
