love note 05: tremendous curves
I can’t believe it’s almost March and that we are approaching the one-year mark of the pandemic. Time has both flown and gone by as slow as molasses. As I’m writing this, I’m realizing that exactly one year ago is when I came out to my whole family and started a whole new journey exploring that part of my identity. So much change in a year.
For example, this time last year figure drawing still pained me and I avoided it at all costs because I told myself it was just something I was bad at. Even a few months ago I thought the same. I’m definitely still learning but it is wild to see the progress after about 15 hours of life drawing in the span of a few weeks. It’s almost annoying to have that realization of “oh it really is just practice that helps you improve.”
I still have that strange dissonance of being grateful to have had this past year to be able to get quiet with myself and figure out what I truly want to do in life and have so much time to explore it and also just being so frustrated, heartbroken, angry, and annoyed at all that this past year has brought. I think the two will just live inside of me.
love note 05: tremendous curves
I’ve put in fifteen hours of figure drawing in the last couple of weeks and I am still so obsessed with the shift in how the brain sees things as you progress along a two-hour session. The panic of seeing the model and wanting to capture their pose as it deserves to be captured but not knowing where to begin. Then suddenly shifting to seeing everything broken down, seeing the body by its parts, just lines and shadows and shapes. The beauty of the line of the spine and getting that down in pencil, charcoal to the paper to try to capture that soft shadow of the underarms.
Talking about it in that way feels almost objectifying but figure drawing, in general, can sometimes feel a little weird. Especially with the long history of who has been allowed to make those images and how their lens has shaped art history. That’s not the point I’m trying to make today, though, just an acknowledgment.
I guess I’m saying I have a greater appreciation of “the” body, its curves and shapes, shadows, and hints at the structure beneath. I put “the” in quotations because there is no way to generalize bodies into an all-encompassing “the” body and having looked at a variety of bodies in these sessions, I’m in awe of all of them and can’t help cursing the many years filled with wasteful hatred and critique of my own body. What’s great is that the organizers of the sessions I’ve been attending have made it a priority to feature a vast variety of models, not just the one type of body we are so used to seeing in galleries.
Years ago I saw an illustration somewhere on the internet of a woman reclining against a mountain and it stuck with me so much so that I eventually commissioned a friend to design a tattoo with the same idea. She lives on my back so I don’t get to see her too often but whenever I do she just seems so peaceful there, unified with nature. There’s something in my mind that connects landscapes and the contours of bodies. Something in the curves or some greater design.
There’s a lot of frustration when the lines seem too stiff, when I don’t do justice to what the model is presenting, when the fluidity of the body contorted sits on the page static. More bizarre is the fact that all of this isn’t truly “life drawing” in the traditional sense, since it’s all being done through zoom. I know part of why I keep attending these sessions is the communal feeling of drawing with other people and boy I can’t wait until I can draw real humans in the flesh. For now, I’ll content myself with making friends with artists around the world through a screen looking at a model thousands of miles away from me.
sessions
If you’re interested in trying life drawing out, these are the sessions I’ve found to be incredibly welcoming to students of all levels and work to be inclusive with their models and are very affordable. Not sure why I’ve only been attending UK sessions but that’s the way it’s been.
Reconfigure Life Drawing Wednesdays 2pm EST / 7pm GMT
Queer Life Drawing Mondays 1pm EST / 6pm GMT
Drawing Life lots of times and days
readings
poetry nook
I Like My Body When It Is With Your by e.e. cummings
i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite new a thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones,and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, slowly stroking the,shocking fuzz
of your electric furr,and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh….And eyes big love-crumbs,
and possibly i like the thrill
I did an animation for this poem in college that though while fairly basic I still quite enjoy.
Currently reading:
Earthlings by Sayaka Murata
I really loved Murata’s debut novel Convenience Store Woman so I had to grab this when I saw it on display at the library. It’s got all my favorite things: outsiders who think their aliens, attempts at being normal, and stuffed hedgehogs that supposedly grant powers. I’ve just started so I can’t say much on it yet but I’m excited to read.
more soon,
k