Ojalá, Selah, Lateda

Return to Figure Drawing

There were a lot of wonderful things about living in Cancun, I could go on and on, but one of my favorite things was La Casa de la Cultura, which translates literally into The House of the Culture. It was there that I first learned about Alebrijes and made my first paper maché mask. I spent long hours in the ceramics studio with an amazing couple of sculptures, and starting in 2003 I participated in weekly figure drawing sessions. (Some examples from then can still be seen on the old cancunarts.com site.) But when we left Cancun (four years ago on Wednesday) i had to leave all that behind.  I am able to continue with my paper maché, no problemo, but I hadn’t had the chance to work with clay or draw from a model in over 4 years. I was thrilled when I heard that the Dawson County Arts Council was going to have weekly figure drawing, and then very disappointed to hear there weren’t enough people interested for it to happen.  However, a small group of artists decided to go ahead and meet in one of their studios and hire their own model once a week and as I had expressed interest in the DCAC group they invited me! Friday I drove out to a beautiful farm slightly north of town and joined three other artists for three hours of drawing. The model overslept so we ended up taking turns drawing each other, but that was fine. I’m not sure how to explain it, but there is just something very different about the experience of sitting with a group of artists and drawing from the same model. I love it. I’m not sure if the difference is based more on having a life model or the communal aspect. I guess I could experiment with drawing still lifes in a group, or drawing a model by myself, but in the meantime I am just so happy to have  a chance to be part of this group. Like I said we have lived here for four years now, but it is just now starting to feel like I am part of the community. (Click on the images to see them bigger.)