A Month of Actions, 2011
The seeds of this project were planted one Saturday morning when a group of kids were in my studio for a drawing lesson. We were making figures with actions - the kids came up with their favorite play actions - skiing, jumping rope, going down a water slide. One of them casually wondered if I could do any of those actions. It is always curious when my young students bring up my disability because it tells me that they are thinking about it and have plenty of questions.
I told them that I probably jumped some rope as a kid, that in my one skiing trip I never left the yellow brick road. And I was positive that I had never been down a water slide. Hmmmm...However, ordinary life is full of actions, isn't it? Even with many constraints on movement, my daily actions are part of living, making, playing, communicating. I was looking for a drawing challenge and this just fell into my lap! A month of actions - do a drawing of an action every day and see what develops.
Like I told the kids - the drawings had to be simple but needed to illustrate the action as completely as possible. To pay attention to how the body bends and how the limbs (in my case, hands) can speak volumes.
I told them that I probably jumped some rope as a kid, that in my one skiing trip I never left the yellow brick road. And I was positive that I had never been down a water slide. Hmmmm...However, ordinary life is full of actions, isn't it? Even with many constraints on movement, my daily actions are part of living, making, playing, communicating. I was looking for a drawing challenge and this just fell into my lap! A month of actions - do a drawing of an action every day and see what develops.
Like I told the kids - the drawings had to be simple but needed to illustrate the action as completely as possible. To pay attention to how the body bends and how the limbs (in my case, hands) can speak volumes.
