Simplicity in Art

It is thought-provoking for every artist to see Albrecht Durer's statement that "Simplicity is the greatest adornment of art". In some ways, it is a bit ironic for Durer was perfectly capable of making complex, crowded works of art, especially his woodcuts.

Nonetheless, the image that of course comes first to mind when I read his remark is his super-famous Hands of an Apostle, a grey and white drawing on his favourite blue paper (image courtesy of Graphische Sammlung Albertina). This drawing was done in preparation for the Frankfurt church altarpiece that Jakob Heller commissioned him to paint in 1508. This is indeed a devastatingly simple drawing in one sense, but look at the rendering of the skin texture, the way Durer conveys the gentle meeting and touching of the finger tips, as well as the effort of keeping the hands together, despite their weight. The blue paper used, "carta azzurra", was a new enthusiasm for Durer; he learned about it when he went in 1507-08 to Venice. Artists in Northern Italy had been using it since 1389, and Venetian artists favoured it because it allowed them to use wonderful chiaroscuro effects.



He was using this paper again for this study of the Twelve-year Old Christ, an extraordinary, sensitive and yet very straightforward drawing (image at right courtesy of the Graphische Sammlung Albertina).



Durer continued to use this paper and took a goodly supply of it back home to Northern Europe. I remember reading somewhere that when he ran out of it, he went to great lengths to find alternative blue papers. This drawing on the left (image courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art) of the Arm of Eve was again, a very simple, powerful drawing Durer did on blue paper in 1507.

I think that it is a real discipline for each of us, as an artist, to try to simplify our work, to distill it to its essence, not to dilute and maybe obscure the message. There is always the temptation to add in more detail, more complexity... When you think of it, however, that a simple study, drawn 503 years ago on a small piece of blue paper, can remain so memorable, so vivid, so powerful is a total confirmation of Durer's statement about simplicity being the greatest "adornment of art".

Art and Gardening

Garden designers and gardeners have always recognised the role that design and art play in the formation of a garden, even - in some cases - a vegetable garden. The Royal Horticultural Society's Lindley Library (www.rhs.org.uk/learning/library/) is a wonderful collection of wisdom on gardening, its history and garden design. But any of us can have a great deal of fun in a garden when we regard it as a living canvas for our art.

Just as a painting has to be organised, so does a garden. Both really need structural "bones", an underlying structure on which to clad the later work of colour. Trees, foundation shrubs, permanent structures likes pergolas, columns or stone walls, all fall into this category. In the same way, it is often very rewarding to put down a totally abstract, strong under painting on canvas before you start on any image painting. For both garden or painting, it is really about creating an experience. John Dewey described in Art as Experience, "The artist selected, simplified, clarified, abridged and condensed according to his interest". Just as you plan a painting that excites, challenges and stimulates or soothes, calms and welcomes, so you can design a garden that elicits a host of reactions from anyone viewing it. Large or small, every garden soon has its own character and atmosphere.

Only after the initial underlying structure stage of creation can colour be added with success. On a canvas, yes, it is of course paint. In the garden, it is a bewildering array of plants which offer varying colour and shapes from leaves or flowers, annual or perennial, seasonality and size requirements.... all dependent on the micro and macro-climate you have. In other words, endless choices and fun. Nonetheless, in the garden, just as in a painting or drawing, the fewer the elements involved, the stronger they have to be from a visual point of view.

Gardening is in some ways more like some disciplines of contemporary art - the garden does not have to endure for a great length of time, given that you can use annuals or you know that everything will change as the seasons turn. But gardens, ideally, do share a longer term aspect of more traditional art - the trees and shrubs can potentially last for centuries, as an artist hopes his or her work on canvas, paper, clay, etc. will do....

Whichever the creation, painting or garden, it can be the source of interest, pleasure and delight to innumerable other people. That compensates for the hours of planning and hard labour that have gone into the work... but at least in painting, you seldom get blisters!

Allusive abstractions

During a time when I seem to be doing everything except painting and drawing, I still find myself staring out of the window at the wonderful, wide salt marshes and seeing all sorts of magical images which I would love to capture.

Because the clouds and the light on the marshes are so fleeting and ever-changing, they require a gestural, allusive approach to catch their essence and somehow record it on paper. In this approach, it is really the viewer who needs to "fill in" the details, bringing his or her own experience and sensations to complement the art on view. Here on the Georgia coast, I think most people are deeply aware of the almost hypnotic beauty of these salt marshes, so they would readily understand such an approach to depicting these scenes.

At the same time, as I gaze out at the marshes, I find myself watching for the abstract underpinnings of the landscape. The play of light and shade can belie the apparent realism of the scene and this interplay can become a valuable under-structure for a painting or drawing. These values can be used to ensure a strong composition of interlocking shapes. So I try to train myself to watch for these allusive aspects which can pitch into abstraction without warning. It is a fun game to play, even if I can't put them on paper at present!

Defining Drawing

September is the renewal of life drawing sessions for my group after summer. It is good to be drawing again, reminding of the need to observe closely, to trust one's eye and ... just go with it! What I also noticed afresh is how differently each artist draws, both physically as well as stylistically.

The body movements, the gestures, that each artist makes as he or she draws are individualistic. Some stand at an easel, making huge, sweeping motions as they make the marks on the canvas or paper, almost like a violin player with a lively bow. Others sit and barely move their arms. The resemblance to dance movements is often remarkable. No wonder artists have always felt a close kinship to dancers. Add in music and the resemblance between mark-making and dance becomes clearer.

In a way, the definition of drawing becomes more murky when you see such artists working. Are they drawing in the air or on a solid surface? Things get even more complex if you consider that today, drawing does not have to be contingent on pencil and paper, or any other traditional mark-making combination. Film/video, digital routes, even three-dimensional means to break up space, within a defined area - all are used to lay out an image. Lines can be made with so many means - from tape, to beads, to tools, to thread, to stylii, even cell phones...

This drawing, for instance, was done with silverpoint, graphite, watercolour and silk thread. I called it "Symphony in Blue".

The traditional definition of drawing, since the early 14th century, is pretty straightforward: "a graphic representation, by lines, of an object or idea, as with a pencil; a delineation of form without reference to colour - a sketch, plan or design, especially made with pen, pencil or crayon..." is one dictionary definition, very much echoing others. But now, as I have said, all bets are off.

One exhibition which should be very interesting to see in this regard is coming up at MOMA, New York, from November 21st onwards. On Line: Drawing through the Twentieth Century is apparently a wide-ranging examination of different approaches to drawing done by many artists from different lands. It should be very thought-provoking for anyone who loves drawing.

More on identity

Yesterday, I mused about the role of drawing in defining one's identity as an artist. Unlike painting, with its more elaborate statement and stage-like set-up, drawing allows an artist to explore and lay out all sorts of different ideas. There is often more flexibility and honesty shown in a drawing, which reveals the artist more readily.

Daring to draw and reveal an inner core requires an act of trust for the artist. Trust that one's own voice will come through and show the artist to be an individual, with a personal style. Basically a high wire act on many occasions, but worth the effort. The more one draws, the more one learns to trust that eye coordination with hand, the inner voice which dictates which marks to make, what to include, what to omit.

Drawing marathons help too - if you push yourself beyond the limit, as in any other discipline, you discover new strengths, new horizons as an artist. You refine who you are as a draughtsman and, by extension, who you are as an artist.

Defining your identity as an artist

Defining yourself as an artist is a lifelong endeavour. Each of us aspires to have a singular voice, a hallmark style and an artistic identity unlike anyone else. Achieving one's own style as an artist is complex, on-going and both technical and psychological. First of all, I believe, it has to do with defining who you are as a person and what you want to say, overall, through your art. It also has to do with hanging on to your belief in yourself, being willing always to learn and adapt, but nonetheless, being true to your own core identity. Sometimes that can be hard, especially when tough economic times demand lots of compromises.

One tool which I find very useful to help me define my identity is drawing. Whether it is with charcoal, graphite, pen and ink, conte crayon, chalk or silverpoint, it does not matter. It is the act of drawing that helps strip things down to bare bones, to try to get at the core of what I am trying to say. In other words, to define my art and thus to define me as an artist. Drawing is a tool with two rather different uses. The first is to make a finished drawing, a work of art that stands alone. The second is to draw small, quick studies for composition, distribution of lights and darks, etc. in preparation for a painting.

Drawing, unlike painting, is a direct, spontaneous act, indicative of emotions and thoughts in fresh and unadorned fashion. Many of the great Old Master drawings will leave errors and show corrections - a new line of a cheekbone on top of one that was off in proportion, an arm which has changed position slightly since the first line was put down, a tangle of lines where the artist was thinking of how to depict something or even blobs of ink where the pen "misbehaved". Rembrandt had many a tussle with his pens and ink but very frequently, that drawing could be readily recognised as one done by Rembrandt.

Try using drawing, any drawing, as a pathway to defining more clearly who you are as an artist. It is often a surprising and enlightening exercise - and fun as well.

Does "a biological sense of place" help in creating art?

Yesterday, I alluded to the question that I kept thinking about when I was working as Artist in Residence in Dinan, Brittany, through Les Amis de la Grande Vigne: does it help an artist to know well the area when he or she is painting, either en plein air, or creating work that is connected to a sense of place?

I think that a sense of comfort and familiarity frees up the artist to concentrate more on the actual art. It is really almost the same as "terroir", the biological sense of place that wine-growers talk of when they refer to specific geographical areas dictating certain characteristics in the wine produced from those regions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terroir). If you intrinsically know the place where you are working as an artist, you know, almost intuitively, the possible plays of light on the scene, the patterns, the rhythms of tides or seasons, the soils, the type of plants that grown there, etc. Because you already have this knowledge deep inside you, you can factor things in more easily as you are working. Understanding how the area "functions" means that you are not struggling so much to convey its character when you are drawing or painting.

Claude Monet is perhaps one of the most famous artists who used his sense of place, or "terroir", to allow him to produce extraordinary art. Starting with his famous series of 25 paintings of Haystacks, for instance, in 1890, Monet got to know those stacks of hay in all their times of day and weather. His interest in producing series of paintings continued almost unabated until the end of his life in 1926. He explored the different aspects of Poplars along the river banks in all weather and times of day. Rouen Cathedral was another series which showed his fascination with this mighty structure in its amazing diversities of light. Perhaps the most celebrated, in terms of his sense and knowledge of place, is his huge body of work , "Les Nympheas", painted at his home, Giverny, based on the waterlilies growing in the pond he created. There are 250 canvases in the series, many showing his eyesight problems with cataracts. Nonetheless, his knowledge of Giverny was almost visceral, since he had virtually created the place. This familiarity allowed him to paint masterpieces that have captivated the world ever since.

Monet's example makes a very good case for an artist to get to know an area as thoroughly as possible when creating art. Maybe "terroir" is as desirable for artists as it is for wine-growers!

Open Eyes

I marvel constantly at the wisdom and insights that I stumble across on the Web. Following a thread on my passion, drawing, I found this observation from the artist, Timothy Nero. He said, "Drawing keep the eye fresh, the mind alive, and intuition nimble."

Every draughtsman knows instantly what he means. As you draw, you find you see things differently, more intimately, with more awareness of space, connectivity and light. Your mind works more alertly, even on a subconscious level, and your senses are honed and more tuned. The act of drawing is a very complex, alive-making affair and things happen in the drawing that you cannot foresee as the artist.

Interestingly, Marc Wilson, Director of the Nelson-Atkins Museum, made a parallel observation about viewing art in an interview reported today by Tyler Green on his Modern Art Notes blog. Mr. Wilson was talking about the galleries in his Bloch Building addition to the Museum and how art is presented there to the public. He said, " I'm not trying to teach you art history. I'm trying to open your eyes, your own senses and your own intelligence to what's in those works of art. That's the first step..."

What art involves, whether in the making or the viewing, is basically, I would venture, a good dose of curiosity and having the willingness to open yourself up to new experiences and insights. It is a way of seeing and understanding another person's viewpoint, another version of reality or imagined "reality". In an era when open-mindedness is in short supply in many domains of society, it is to be celebrated that art has still the ability to break down barriers, inhibitions and prejudices. This situation does, however, imply quite a responsibility for each artist somehow to be the provider of keys to unlock doors to different, perhaps new experiences. Perhaps it is lucky that most artists are almost impelled to draw and paint, whether or not their results have this effect. Each of us, as artists, just needs that special feeling of being really alive as we work.

Celebrating Drawing

I always love it when out of the blue, one learns of the celebration of the art of drawing.

Just a small entry in today's Spanish papers, but a good piece of news for all of us who think that drawing is just as important as painting. Miquel Barcelo, the highly successful artist from Mallorca, has just been awarded the Penages Award for Drawing from the Mapfre Foundation in Spain. In his acceptance speech, he talked of the fact that he finds that, " Es gracioso pensar que la pintura ha muerto y el dibujo no" -explicó en referencia a aquellos que dan por muerto este arte-. Como si muere Dios pero la Virgen María siguiese viva" ( a quote from the Diario de Mallorca, that it is somewhat ironic to think that painting has died whilst drawing survives, as if God had died but the Virgin Mary remains alive). He received the award in Madrid, with Princess Elena present at the ceremony.

Barcelo's drawings and etchings are indeed a delight with their fluid ease and grace.


This is an image courtesy of the website of Paola Curti/Annamaria Gambuzzi & Co. entitled Marche de Shange, la Jupe Verte (the Green Skirt), done with mixed media in 2000. Barcelo has spent a lot of tiime in Africa, especially in Mali, and his images capture the essence of Africa.




This 1999 etching is from his series of works from the Balearic island of Lanzarote, entitled Lanzarote XXV, courtesy of ArtNet.

This is another of the Lanzarote series, a wonderful depiction of dogs.

I delight when an artist celebrates drawing as does Miquel Barcelo. He inspires us all to keep drawing.

Baudelaire and Drawing

Charles Baudelaire, who prided himself on his abilities as an art critic, wrote a fascinating description of his concept of drawing for the 1855 Universal Exhibition in Paris. He said, "A good drawing is not a hard, despotic, motionless line enclosing a form like a strait jacket. Drawing should be like nature, living and reckless... nature shows us an endless series of curved, fleeting, broken lines, according to an unerring law of generation, in which parallels are always undefined and meandering, and concaves and convexes correspond to and pursue one another."

I was thinking about this definition of drawing today as I sat on a dock in the late soft afternoon breezes and tried to capture cloud formations as they waxed and waned in endless energy. Only by letting go of conscious thoughts and just trying to work the eye-hand connection could I get down anything that captured the endlessly majestic procession of the clouds. It was just as Baudelaire described the process of drawing.

Discovery of a wonderful draughtswoman, Sky Pape

Just recently, I read of an exhibition opening at New York's June Kelly Gallery entitled "Water Works: Surface Tension", with drawings by Sky Pape. I was intrigued and delighted: this Canadian artist, living in New York, is creating drawings that I find beautiful, sensitive and highly unusual.

Sky Pape is pushing out the boundaries of the definition of drawing in a way that marries physical - and I mean her whole body, not just arms and hands - with intellectual and true global awareness. She uses the traditional drawing media - save for silverpoint, apparently - but in totally new fashions. Her papers are from many sources, but all with environmental and societal considerations. Tibet, Nepal, Korea and Japan are some of the paper-making sources, and she views her work as "a collaboration with those distant paper-makers in Asia", as she folds, cuts, amalgamates and reverses the different types of paper to create her work.

Her mark-making media range from graphite to coloured pencil to ink - humble, traditional and simple media, but she uses them in very different fashion. For instance, she blows ink through tubes and funnels onto these handmade Asian papers that she has spread on the floor. Building on her belief that drawing is at the centre of any art, she is combining a physical expressiveness with a recognition that the paper is part of the creative dialogue, and it too symbolises nature in all its manifestations. The minimalist and elegant drawings that result from these unusual approaches are evocative, and satisfying - even seen in digital form. How much more worthwhile they must be to see in person, one can only imagine.

Having had the fun of studying many of her drawings on her website, I am not at all surprised that she will be spending March this year in Bellagio, Italy, on a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. There are many many wonderful draughtsmen working today, but I am always thrilled to find an artist who is not only pushing out the boundaries of drawing media but going so in an uplifting fashion that makes me go "Ah!" with pleasure and interest.

See what you all think of Sky Pape....

Lines

When you think about it, life is full of lines. Power lines, phone lines, railway lines, the lines that define buildings and streets, cobwebs and even the veins of leaves... For an artist, however, using lines in drawings can give rise to many different philosophies and approaches.

For instance, Paul Klee famously and deliciously said, "A drawing is simply a line going for a walk". That statement goes along with his whimsy and imaginative approach to creating art. Just like his statement that "a line is a dot that went for a walk".

This is beautifully illustrated by one of his numerous drawings, this image courtesy of the Cultural Internet website. It shows that whilst Klee was clearly drawing very intelligently, and often with deliberate wit and parody, particularly as the Nazis rose to power, nonetheless intuition and pure creativity flowed happily.

Another artist who allows the line simply to flow from her, without premeditation, is Christine Hiebert. Very widely exhibited and heralded for her inventive approach to drawing with media ranging from blue tape to charcoal, she investigates the nature and language of line. She starts a drawing on a blank wall empty of ideas, not using a pre-drawn sketch. She says, "The final outcome is always something I didn't anticipate. The process can be unsettling, but that is how I prefer to work... For me, drawing starts with the problem of the line, how to form it and how to follow it. In a way, it ends with the line too. The line remains independent, searching, never completely absorbed by the community of its fellows." (Except from her Davis Museum brochure for Reconnaissance, August 2009.)

I find her approach of visual thinking through drawing fascinating, because there is also another, more traditional approach to drawing. That is based upon seeing or conceiving of an image which the artist then proceeds to translate, through line, into an permanent image. This has been an accepted way of creating line drawings in Western art since the monks began to delineate their illuminations on vellum and parchment and their heirs, during the Renaissance, brought the art of drawing to great heights. Not only were the lines then used to explore ideas and make studies in preparation for paintings, but the artists also made finished drawings, line after careful line. Indeed, for many centuries, skill in drawing was almost predicated on little erasure, in silverpoint (that permanent line won't budge!), but also in red chalk (the bravura medium), black chalk, pen and ink and even charcoal.

Today, many artists are pushing the definitions of using line or making drawings far beyond those traditional approaches. Perhaps it is only fitting in a world where man made lines - the power grids, the computer chips, or whatever - predominate.

When a beautiful drawing can be produced by Drawing Machine 2, using a mathematical model, the lines indeed go for their walk. Paul Klee would certainly approve, I am sure. It is good to remember that any approach to lines is possible, as long as we artists allow ourselves to be creative and free. That is my definition of fun!

Beginning with a drawing

Today I was out painting on the marshes, and the reflections and patterns were unbelievable as the tide flowed serenely in. Working in watercolours, plein air, not from photographs, one can become schizophrenic as things change so quickly. Added to that changeability of light and pattern, you have a lot of humidity, so watercolours seem to take for ever to dry. So I was doing what I seldom do, doing two paintings concurrently.

Pretty soon, I remembered, a little wryly, a remark I found that Hans Holbein the Younger had made: "everything began with a drawing..." How true! If I had not made a relatively loose but nonetheless careful drawing before I started each painting, I would have been in deep trouble. In one painting, I got fascinated with the reflections of three docks along a creek edge, and the play of light on their pilings, roofs, etc. However, between the drawing and later (sort of!) completion of the watercolour, people had moved boats around, the tide had come in, the sun had gone over and clouds had come up. Without at least a rough "road map" underneath, I would not have known how to continue the painting at some points.

I think I first learned to the value of an initial under-drawing for a watercolour many, many years ago in Alaska. I was doing a landscape of the dramatic mountains and inlets near Homer, and to my delight, there was a little red plane parked at just the right focal point. I had drawn it very roughly, intending to return in more detail as I got more to painting that part... Painting away happily, I suddenly realised that I was hearing the sound of a plane engine starting up. Before I could remedy my omissions of detail, the little red plane had sailed up into the air and disappeared! So much for my focal point!

In other words, draw, draw and draw again - one never regrets it.

The Honesty of Drawing

I found a quote by Sandy Davidson about drawing that I find interesting. She said, "Drawing is intimate and reveals exactly where we are, and in a culture that isn't comfortable with that, it frightens many. You just cannot cheat when you draw."

Considering that drawing, in its many forms, has enjoyed an amazing resurgence in popularity and interest these past few years, that statement begins to make one wonder: Are we as a society becoming more accepting of others' differences, of other tastes and cultures? Has tolerance begun to seep in at the edges of this complex world we live in, particularly in the United States?

If drawing, indeed a truthful and sometimes brutally direct medium, is being more widely understood, then it is holding up mirrors of ourselves to us and our fellow citizens that we can find more to our liking. Perhaps a note of hope at a time when society seems as riven as ever by divergencies of politics, ethics, beliefs...

"Treat Life like Art..."

Maya Angelou wrote that we should "treat life like art... " and to "remember that we are all created creative and can invent new scenarios as frequently as they are needed". I had been going to write about the interconnection of life and the visual arts, but as I was opening up this blog site, I began reading Tyler Green's entries in Modern Art Notes about Considering Torture through Art and Bruce Nauman's Double Steel Cage Piece. It seemed an ironic reversal of what Maya Angelou said. The recent and increasing discussions about the Bush-era issues of torture and abuse remind one that many people do not, in any way, see life as potentially beautiful or noble or even ethical. As Tyler Green said correctly, artists are among the few people who can address such issues as torture since they are "independent contractors", able to "embrace ambiguity rather than reject it" and address it through art.

Not all of us, as artists, feel equipped to tackle such important and weighty subjects, but thank goodness there are many who are the conscience of a society. However, I also feel that each artist is particularly passionate about some important issue and thus will marry life and art as eloquently as possible. In my case, it is the natural world and the need to respect and care for it that move me.

To that end, often, I find that the choice of what I paint or draw is, consciously or subconsciously, guided by environmental concerns and observations. Even when one works plein air, there is a constant "invention of new scenarios" by pruning and editing of the scene in front of one to achieve better the desired effect. Life and art are so closely allied that it is hard to separate them out and the art of living, or living for art, are both full time occupations, requiring practice and thought, a code of conduct and a very necessary sense of humour. As Ms. Angelou reminds us, there is always that gift too - the option of inventing new scenarios, in our own lives, or on canvas or paper - an option to grow as an artist, as a person. She also said, "You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have." A good thought for an artist to remember!

Gifts of the Moment

Today was one of those gifts that nature bestows on one a few times each summer along the coast, when the humidity drops, the skies are clear and a gentle breeze makes the world joyously sparkling. It was the perfect day to be out drawing along the marshes, a welcome respite from other activities and concerns. The additional incentive was that it was a day designated for drawing by being part of the international Sketchcrawl group.

It was a day to experiment too, with a slightly different format of graphite drawing, with prepared grounds in different subtle colours. I had seen artist George Sorrels' wonderful Arches drawing book in which he had prepared varying sizes of small squares and rectangles in subtle colour, page by pages. Then, according to the subject matter he found, he would select a prepared area and do a graphite drawing of exquisite beauty and sensitivity. So I prepared paper in a number of colours, and sallied forth.

It was enormous fun to be drawing and experimenting, but more than the fun, there were so many gifts of the moment. The salt water marshes, emerald scintillating to golden, were generous with their ever-changing light. The tide flowed full and then softly ebbed, transforming the whole landscape, with the water surface rippled in a million patterns of light from the on-shore breeze. Osprey keened and sailed above. Herons stalked and drowsed, wood storks dangled their long legs just above the spartina grass as they flapped along to the next hunting ground and gulls dipped into the water and swirled back around to dip again. Marsh wrens chattered endlessly from their hidden perches. Schools of fish made their distinctive whoosh of water parting as they leapt in unison to escape a hidden peril. Time lost any meaning.

I don't know if these gifts of beauty, music and peace show up in the art I did in any way, but as artist Phyllis Purvis-Smith remarked in a March 2009 article in American Artist, "experiencing nature for the artist is also important..,". I know that after the time spent drawing, I felt utterly restored by the generosity of the day.

Drawing

One of the nice aspects of the contemporary art world is how drawing is thriving.

Twenty-five or thirty years ago, when I started seriously learning of the American art world, draughtsmen and women seemed to have a rather thin time. It was a very rare connoisseur, especially in the United States, who either knew much about drawing media or appreciated drawings for the sake of drawings. The Drawing Center in New York, for example, was founded in 1977. Interestingly, it claims in its mission statement still to be the only not-for-profit fine arts institution in the country to focus solely on the exhibition of drawings, both historical and contemporary.

Few young artists were taught to draw - it was not really considered necessary, it seemed. Life drawing was the domain of the few, and eye-hand coordination skills were seldom talked about. The Natural Way to Draw, Nicolaides' now-famous book, completed after his death by a friend and student,Mamie Harnon, was little known, I learned. Silverpoint drawing was virtually unknown - there were very few artists using this medium.

Slowly, slowly, there has been a groundswell in the drawing world. A few exhibitions here and there, more and more institutions, like the Arkansas Arts Center, seriously collecting contemporary works on paper which were mostly drawings in different media... more courses taught. For silverpoint, there was the seminal exhibition in 1985, curated by Dr. Bruce Weber, at the Norton Museum of Art in Palm Beach, Fl, called The Fine Line: Drawing with Silver in America.

Now, there is a wonderful change. Not only are there regularly Master Drawing exhibits around the country, but there is a great deal of interest generated by the institutions famed for their drawing collections, ranging from the National Gallery or the Metropolitan Museum of Art to the Morgan Library in New York. Courses are widely offered, magazines devoted to draughtsmanship. Galleries are more willing to show contemporary drawings. You know there is wide acceptance of an art form when art fairs begin to focus on it. For instance, this is the sixth year that the fair, "Master Drawings New York", is being held across twenty blocks of New York's' Upper East Side, for nine days , as of 20th January. Its co-founder, Crispian Riley-Smith, is quoted in this month's Art+Auction magazine, as saying, "Drawings are quite intimate, and people need to take their time to look at them."

Another indication of how widespread is the acceptance and practice of the many drawing media are now is to glance through one the the art catalogues that land in one's mail box (surprisingly in today's on-line commercial world!). Jerry's Artarama, for example, has 51 pages in its "Drawing" section, and that does not include any of the pages devoted to Paper (which constitutes another 48-odd pages....). The total catalogue has some 560 pages for everything, from paint to frames... so you can judge how important drawing has become to the purveyors of art materials.

As with every skill that becomes more widespread and more accepted, there is a flowering of ideas, of innovations and approaches. New materials used, fresh combinations of media, different ways to express oneself - the state of drawing is vibrant and healthy. What fun and how wonderful to see this happen. A good omen for 2012.