SURREALISTS STUCK AT HOME: Writing and Drawing Lockdown
This is the second online workshop I have attended by London Drawing Group, this time hosted by artist Luisa-Maria MacCormack and writer Philip Webb Gregg. I cannot commend London Drawing Group highly enough. The workshops they offer are engaging, insightful and incredibly well researched and presented. From my experience they have been ‘pay what you can’, which when times are financially uncertain is a fantastic option.
In the last couple of months I have found myself in isolation twice, as per the government guidelines for coming in to contact with someone who has tested positive for coronavirus. It is a strange period of time where you are led to feel as though you have been given a golden opportunity to create artworks and be productive, but this time does not necessarily lend itself to positive thinking or inspired creativity. This has led to a period of self doubt and a general feeling of demotivation.
I have found solace in virtual courses, workshops and activities that have given me a feeling of artificial normality and some routine to long stretches of disorganised and unstructured days.
This Surrealist workshop caught my eye because it incorporated writing alongside drawing and I felt it might inspire some visual poetry. We were instructed to have prepared a body of text in which we would be defacing, which reminded me of the Dadaist poetry that I had considered in the last module.
The introduction stated that Surrealism was described as being a reaction against the ridiculousness of the world. I felt this sentiment resonated with most participants. A series of rapid challenges were thrust upon us in quick succession that did not allow for us to sit and contemplate too much about the work we were making, but to accept and enjoy the creative chaos that ensued.
The tasks that we were asked to participate in were selected from the Surrealist Book of Games. In all honesty the games we took part in were not revolutionary tasks that I had not come across before, but did stimulate a response from the part of me that had been struggling to feel free with my creative outlets. I have felt very despondent of late, and forcing work that does not want to be forced. These tasks encouraged expression and amusement. I have since bought the Surrealist Book of Games for myself for times when I feel creatively disorientated.
Below are examples of the drawings and written works that came from the workshop, some were more successful than others, but all were important reminders to not expect too much of yourself in a strange and unsettling time such as the one we find ourselves in. Being encouraged to seek out words and images in this hour also led to a newfound appreciation for the space around us in lockdown, encouraging us to not merely exist in the space but to live in it.
Ephemeral Poem - a game in which you explore your home environment searching for misplaced words in order to create a collaged poem. We had two minutes to search for words or phrases, and then two words to compose a poem.
Shake, and create your own universe,
Enjoy!
Love, distilled and bottled.
Found Drawing - a game in which you explore the home environment searching for misplaced imagery in order to create a collaged drawing which will reflect the experience of your environment. Each item was given a different time limit, some were as short as 5 seconds, some as long as 30 seconds.
Text as art - select a body of text and cut up words or phrases, not reading the words beforehand. We had four minutes to cut up the text, and then four minutes to compose a poem.
we’re gonna do tonight
outside on the street
we’ve got it all planned,
laughing and feeling good
he was the funniest
Decalcomania - also know as ‘blackout poetry’. Take a page of text and ruthlessly erase big bodies of writing with a black marker pen, trying not to read the text beforehand.
at any moment
freedom and absolute freedom.
I myself was not a lovely little poem
for this one rare full moon.
Involuntary Sculpture - take a page of text and screw it up into a sculpture, studying the sculpture and composing a poem with the words that you can find.
Your Spot - a series of 4x three minute drawings from a place that you find yourself drawn to in lockdown. The drawings must sit on one sheet of paper, either on top of each other or as a panoramic study.
Automatic Writing - allowing yourself to be completely honest with what feelings or thoughts arise in response to a specific image. In this case, we responded to ‘The Therapist’ by René Magritte and subsequently ‘Notes for an Apocalypse’ by Dorothea Tanning.
I can’t support myself. I’m tired, and hiding, and tired. I want to leave, but I'm trapped in my outside inside. Clutching, not holding. Red, white and blue, but not in a freedom way. Two birds in the cage is worth how many in the hand? How many in the bag?
‘The Therapist’ by René Magritte, 1937 - oil on canvas.
I don’t understand what it is I'm experiencing. A tablecloth that is a cloud, but not. And how many limbs? And a green goblin? Stuff of nightmares with a fireball halo. Confusion, uncertainty and a fireball halo in a moody grey sky.
‘Notes for an Apocalypse’ by Dorothea Tanning, 1978 - oil on canvas.
As a closing task for the workshop we we asked to select elements from both artworks and create a new surrealist piece in response to these. The drawing I ended up creating was made while not looking at the page, fully embracing the surrealist weirdness of what happens when you relinquish control of the drawing to pure intuition.
