My year with the Royal Drawing School is both finished and unfinished, scheduled class commitments sit behind me, commitments to my own practice in front. Immediately ahead lie two in-house drawing days meeting most of the ODDY cohort in person for the first time and then a group exhibition in March. But also ahead I hope, is the continuation and enrichment of our group into a mutually supportive entity with its part played in all our future practice.
The course imposed a discipline that on non wage earning days saw me in my studio daily from 10 – 5 and thinking about being in there, at all the other times! In the final term I began to long for time to develop a multitude of arising ideas and now I have it, or at least, I have it as much as I ever will. Participation in the ODDY necessitated a collaborative structure (isn’t that what partly attracts artists to courses?) the blocking out of hours and days for playing and thinking and doing. Post ODDY, the beginning of 2024 finds me assembling a new structure dedicated to giving those ideas life and still playing, thinking and doing.
