The Art of the Life-Model at Leeds Art Gallery- pedagogic and performative strategies in community arts education, A. (original) (raw)
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"""The session discusses the role of the life-model in the teaching of life-drawing, and notes her/his conventional marginalisation in making images and in teaching art. Frequently regarded as an abject and monstrous figure whose body and presence is regulated by the tutor and life-drawers, the life-model is a naked, roving, chattering shape-shifter. Taming and containing the monstrous model is a key function of the tutor. But what happens when the life-model teaches the class? This paper discusses findings from The Art of the Life-Model at Leeds Art Gallery/ Leeds College of Art, 2002-2009 noting the shape-shifting benefits of model-led pedagogy. Errata - PLEASE NOTE: There is a formatting error on Appendix 5, also some of the photos have shifted from their original pages. Please ensure there are no photographs printed out at the top of the appendices' handouts if you are using them as teaching materials. . The box which is out of synch on Appendix 5 should read 'Verbal Direction. Tutor / Lead artist tells the model how to place their body.' There is a correctly-formatted copy of this spider graph in the appendices of the 2007 'Embodying the Other' report, also available to download here. Also please note - this paper is reproduced in Talks above. Further info: The session will invite participants to reflect on their own experiences and/ or perceptions of the functions, conventions and practice of working with life-models in a life-drawing situation. It will introduce teaching materials used on The Art of the Life-Model course to explore the conventions of life-drawing, the shape-shifting histories of the life-model, also a range of practices used to 'pose' the model. It will also introduce materials used on a concurrent programme WILMA - Women Into Life-Modelling Arts - a series of community workshops in which life-models explored the profession and discussed how their role is configured and presented to life-drawing students and artists. The session introduces discussion of the role of the life-model in the teaching of life-drawing, and notes her/his conventional marginalisation as a creative agent in the making of images. This marginalisation extends to the historical treatment of the model as an abject and monstrous figure whose body and presence is regulated by the tutor and life-drawers in the processes of life-drawing, and through the conventions of robing, screening and fixing, also by stillness, silence and distance. The model is a shape-shifter in the life-drawing space and convention demands that s/he is fixed. The session will discuss the development and experience of model-led teaching, discussing the monstrous implications of moving between the conventionally discrete positions of 'model' and 'tutor' and the effects of combining these roles. It will discuss how nudity is managed and negotiated with learners in this context. It will also discuss innovative ways of mark-making and drawing from the model for the life-drawing student working individually or collectively. The session will also invite discussion on the role and practice of life-drawing in public gallery spaces. The Art of the Life-Model was held at Leeds Art Gallery and each session started from an artwork in which the presence of both visible and invisible bodies could be traced. Students were encouraged to 'step into the picture' and to empathise with the world of the model through a mixture of drama-based and storytelling activities before engaging with life-drawing. The sessions involved teacher and learners in experimental life-drawing sessions using both the education workshop and the public spaces of the gallery. This took the negotiation of the roving, shape-shifting, chattering, naked and theatrical body of the life-model beyond the life-drawing space and into a public arena - a movement that raised questions about the performance of the grotesque, the marginalised, the visceral and the abject in the gallery space - its possibilities and its limits. It also took the act of drawing out of the closed world of the studio and into the public space raising questions about the changing function of the gallery as a process-based and 'making' space' and the implications for viewing inherent in this. The session will introduce sessional documents, photographs and examples from practice inviting new ideas on the role of the model in both closed and public life-drawing practice. The research paper offered here includes photographs from sessions at Leeds Art Gallery including a collaboration with Raphaelle de Groot, participants on The Art of the Life-Model and Cast-Off Drama projects at Leeds Art Gallery, UK between 2002-2012."""
The Monstrous Model: Shape-Shifting in the Life-Drawing Space.
""HEA Arts & Humanities Annual Conference 2014, 'Heroes and Monsters: extra-ordinary tales of learning and teaching in the Arts and Humanities' The session discusses the role of the life-model in the teaching of life-drawing, and notes her/his conventional marginalisation in making images and in teaching art. Frequently regarded as an abject and monstrous figure whose body and presence is regulated by the tutor and life-drawers, the life-model is a naked, roving, chattering shape-shifter. Taming and containing the monstrous model is a key function of the tutor. But what happens when the life-model teaches the class? This paper discusses findings from The Art of the Life-Model at Leeds Art Gallery/ Leeds College of Art, 2002-2009 noting the shape-shifting benefits of model-led pedagogy. Errata - PLEASE NOTE: There is a formatting error on Appendix 5, also some of the photos have shifted from their original pages. Please ensure there are no photographs printed out at the top of the appendices' handouts if you are using them as teaching materials. . The box which is out of synch on Appendix 5 should read 'Verbal Direction. Tutor / Lead artist tells the model how to place their body.' There is a correctly-formatted copy of this spider graph in the appendices of the 2007 'Embodying the Other' report, also available to download here. Please note this paper is also reproduced below - due to techno issues with the site I ended up making a double entry! Further details: The session will invite participants to reflect on their own experiences and/ or perceptions of the functions, conventions and practice of working with life-models in a life-drawing situation. It will introduce teaching materials used on The Art of the Life-Model course to explore the conventions of life-drawing, the shape-shifting histories of the life-model, also a range of practices used to 'pose' the model. It will also introduce materials used on a concurrent programme WILMA - Women Into Life-Modelling Arts - a series of community workshops in which life-models explored the profession and discussed how their role is configured and presented to life-drawing students and artists. The session introduces discussion of the role of the life-model in the teaching of life-drawing, and notes her/his conventional marginalisation as a creative agent in the making of images. This marginalisation extends to the historical treatment of the model as an abject and monstrous figure whose body and presence is regulated by the tutor and life-drawers in the processes of life-drawing, and through the conventions of robing, screening and fixing, also by stillness, silence and distance. The model is a shape-shifter in the life-drawing space and convention demands that s/he is fixed. The session will discuss the development and experience of model-led teaching, discussing the monstrous implications of moving between the conventionally discrete positions of 'model' and 'tutor' and the effects of combining these roles. It will discuss how nudity is managed and negotiated with learners in this context. It will also discuss innovative ways of mark-making and drawing from the model for the life-drawing student working individually or collectively. The session will also invite discussion on the role and practice of life-drawing in public gallery spaces. The Art of the Life-Model was held at Leeds Art Gallery and each session started from an artwork in which the presence of both visible and invisible bodies could be traced. Students were encouraged to 'step into the picture' and to empathise with the world of the model through a mixture of drama-based and storytelling activities before engaging with life-drawing. The sessions involved teacher and learners in experimental life-drawing sessions using both the education workshop and the public spaces of the gallery. This took the negotiation of the roving, shape-shifting, chattering, naked and theatrical body of the life-model beyond the life-drawing space and into a public arena - a movement that raised questions about the performance of the grotesque, the marginalised, the visceral and the abject in the gallery space - its possibilities and its limits. It also took the act of drawing out of the closed world of the studio and into the public space raising questions about the changing function of the gallery as a process-based and 'making' space' and the implications for viewing inherent in this. The session will introduce sessional documents, photographs and examples from practice inviting new ideas on the role of the model in both closed and public life-drawing practice. Conference Registration now open: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/arts-humanities-conf-2014 ""
This paper examines a number of paintings in the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool with a view to extracting certain lessons for life. The paper focuses on life and death, and takes the central theme to be that of finding one’s place within the endless cycles of nature. The moral is that we need to understand that we are a unity of the finite and the infinite, we need to distinguish between the transitory and the permanent, stop obsessing about passing circumstances, stop being overwhelmed by the whims of fame and fortune, and identify with what is of lasting value in our selves in building a life. Don’t fight against the course of events, let things happen naturally through identifying oneself and one’s life with the cosmic rhythm. The paper concerns what it takes to be true to oneself and coming to be the person you know you can be. This is the joy of discovering what you were born to be.
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This expanded and edited version of my 2019 essay explores a meme that has slipped quietly into our daily discourse and guides the production of so much contemporary art and literature and, I would add, the direction our entire culture is taking. A mystery of incarnation lies “within” this largely unexamined meme and the cultural forms it produces through the artist soul. In Part 1, I explore this mystery in terms of modern cultural productions while in Part 2, I discuss a dream I had in the early nineties and its effects on the unfoldment of my life as a work of art.
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