Pages

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Sculpture and Drawing

Drawing is really boring if you're not the one drawing. 
Solution? Be the one drawing!

Mr. D went to see Pierre Boulez conduct a concert at IRCAM.
That freed me to commune with an old Madonna.
Not THAT one.
In the cool dim church, the smell of incense, a candle and fresh, fragrant Casa Blanca lilies...
Spending two hours drawing one sculpture in quiet St Severin was heavenly.
So different from the hundreds of photos I took...to be looked at later. Necessary but crazy making.

The longer I studied her the more information I saw.
Drawing her face, it dawned on me I understood the sequence of how they carved her smiling eyes.
It was like a holy transmission of knowledge, I just knew how the original carver had worked.
It was an incredible moment, because I felt close to him, and so aware of the centuries between us.
That's what art does...


Back home, with only the drawings now, that information seems dreamlike.

At least I still have the pillow, my drawings, to guide me when I start to carve again.

2 comments:

Deb said...

Aye- there's that 'knowing' that can't be captured by words - its just too big to be reduced to storytelling. You've stored it, none the less. Just to make sure though, best to plan another trip to Paris!

Susan Gallacher-Turner said...

Yes, I agree with Deb, you have that knowledge in the best possible place and when the time is right and it is needed, you will have it.