Drawing- the shift from analysis to empathy
The process of drawing is fascinating.
It’s all about learning to change how we see. It can help shift the way of experiencing the world from something analytical to something more empathetic, and it’s that latter viewpoint that helps us connect with our surroundings and transform our interactions with the world.
For a while I’ve been thinking about how valuable this shift could be to the development of our social, economical and ecological systems. If we could be more connected, more empathetic in our interactions both with each other and our surroundings perhaps it could help shift how we approach our lives in a really significant way. We might start caring more about how our actions and decisions affect others.
When teaching life drawing one of the things that I often notice is how quickly the students switch from seeing the model as another human to seeing them as an object. It’s a subtle difference but has a really dramatic affect on the way they approach the drawing. This subtle switch happens frequently throughout our day, not just in the drawing class…crammed inside a stuffy train in rush hour all the people around you cease being seen as people and become inanimate obstacles, personal space exists only in your head and we often retreat into our own world shutting off from the world around us.
I want to explore this shift from the analytic view to the empathetic, encouraging students to connect with the model from inside out.
In Butoh the dancer practices transforming imagery into feelings and the body moves in response, it is important that the movement is felt not just thought. In dance touch becomes a primary sense, the whole body an instrument for expression. We live in an ocular-centric culture and in drawing this can pose a problem. Sight presents the world as a collection of separate objects existing in space, it is through touch that we meet and connect with these objects and the boundaries separating one from another become less distinguishable. In the Life drawing class engaging our sense of touch often helps shift the emphasis of the drawing from one of onlooker to ‘felt’ experience.
I was recently asked to run a workshop at The Art Academy in London on drawing movement, and thought it could be an interesting opportunity to explore this further.
I have asked Florencia Gueberof (Butoh dancer) to run the workshop with me. The initial plan is that Florencia will engage the students in a Butoh workshop giving them first had experience of what it feels like to move, to feel their bodies respond to impulses etc. This session will be followed by a drawing session with Florencia performing for them. The idea is that through the dance workshop the students ‘activate’ their awareness of touch, becoming aware of the impulses that move them. I want to see if this same bodily awareness could transform the way in which the students draw. Does it make it easier to switch the way of looking? Are the marks created out of a felt response and experience? How does the connection with our sense of touch relate to our ability to empathise?
