Thirteenth International Conference on The Arts in Society

Abstract

After 30 years as a studio artist I’ve turned away from the studio in favor of on-site examinations of place and community through the act of drawing. I think of the process as slow interactive journalism: I’m trying to flesh out a broad portrait of the community connectedness through these immersive episodes. For each project I spend 14 days drawing in public at sites chosen by their suitability to examine issues of history, politics, or ecology in relation to my community. Project locations of the last year have included a family farm, my local gas station, Nashville’s downtown General Sessions courtrooms, a park endangered by development, a public radio station, an underground concert venue, and polling stations across northern Alabama during the Dec 12 U.S. Special Senate election. The technology changes(ink, pencil, marker, iPad, paint) depending on individual project restrictions, but the method is consistent: looking and listening and working to grasp the totality of the living scene. For this session, I propose to present samples of the methods and results of these projects in order to give an overview of this method of integrating drawing and social practice.