Adele 2025 05 - 2025 06 10

 

Pen and highlighter pen on paper 6" x 10"

A drawing of my rescue dog, Adele. A sketch in highlighter pen on paper. The paper is ripped from a notebook. The drawing of Adele is tight to the lower left hand corner. The background is 'unfinished' or untouched. The background is filled with possibility. My eye is drawn to the picture of Adele and the expression in her eyes, "What is she looking at?". My eye is also drawn to the unmarked space. The possibilities of emptiness that align my heart and spirit with the potential energy of eternity.

This drawing was made one evening sitting at the dining table with my friends, talking about life and working on our own creative projects.

A few of thoughts about artistic production and sharing our work. What is value? What is worth doing? What is worth sharing?

First, I am remembering our lessons in photo documenting our work from art school. We were taught to be very precise and accurate in our photo-documentation. We had to have a large wall, room to hang the work and room for the camera on a tripod. We had to have lighting apparatus on stands with reflectors and diffusers. We had to have a camera that could be adjusted for shutter speed, aperture and Fstop settings. We had to have a white balance card for colour calibration. This was more equipment than I could carry on a bicycle. It was a lot of equipment to purchase, manage and store when it was not in use. The product of this process and equipment was archive quality slides for submitting to gallery owners, art competitions and school applications. I still have a 4 inch binder of slides from that era. No one has ever looked at them. It was a phenomenal cost for me to produce these slides. 

Second, I am remembering our lessons from art history. The majority of work that we were introduced to as made by men. I am going to hazard a guess that I could count on one hand the notable female artists from each significant art movement in art history (if there was a women included in the canon). At the same time, I could not count on all my fingers and toes the number of male artists I was shown from each significant art movement in art history. At the same time, these works of art were described as 'masterpieces'. They were finished works that hang in museums around the world. They were examples of the best works of art produced in the history of humankind. As an art student, I was indoctrinated with the idea that my art work had to constitute a cohesive collection of works, that I was producing the narrative thread that would be written about my work into art history. Every mark I made was supposed to carry significance for every other mark I made, and all these marks would eventually be collected in a glossy coffee table book.

Third, I am remembering our lessons from drawing and painting classes. We were encouraged to work on large sheets, to make large canvasses. Again, works that were too big to carry on a bicycle. There was something about equating the size of the work we produced with its inherent significance as an aesthetic object. We were taught that there was a 'finished' work and that meant that every inch of the surface had been worked, that the foreground, the background, the edge and the overall picture plane was completed. The subject, the figure, the ground, the surface, the edge, the scale - all of these dimensions of the work needed to be accounted for, to be considered and rationalized within the context of the art for arts' sake. There was no consideration for the artist herself, the circumstances of her capacity and capability for production. The production of creative works was only considered within the contexts of art history and a particular narrative of visual art production dominated by men who had the privilege to invest countless hours, material and space to their visual artistic development.

The context, condition and facts of my art production are significant. I am a woman of advancing age. I have limited resources of time, materials and physical space. I will never catch the eye of an art gallery owner or a drawing competition. I may never be written into the annals of art history. None of these factors is significant in terms of my need, my desire, to produce creative works and share them with my friends. I don't need to invest in elaborate photo documentation to be able to take a picture, and post it to my friends and family, to my wider community of shared interests and passions. I do not need to be limited to ideas about mastery and masculine dominance to make drawings and paintings that interest me, tell me something about myself, or delight my imagination. I do not need to make large, difficult or intricate masterpieces for my work to show 'mastery', my lifetime of drawing is enough. I am my own master of my own creative works.

What is of value? If it speaks to us, if it resonates with our sensibilities, if it inspires our imagination, it is of value.

What is worth doing? If our creative works help us to feel a sense of belonging, a sense of shared purpose, a sense of contributing to our society for the good of all concerned, they are worth doing.

What is worth sharing? If we made something and we feel good about it, it is worth sharing.