As with all live creative projects it is the unexpected happenings that prove to be the most rewarding.
I’m still a jangle of nerves when I arrive. It’s a kind of stage-fright borne out of a fear that I won’t deliver, my hands and brain will freeze and my drawings will be as dead as dodos. But when I get there (and so far this has applied to both Ruthin Craft Centre and Oriel Davies) and I’ve set out my materials, breathed and then looked around me at the work, I begin to forget my self-consciousness. It’s what I wanted, this precious opportunity to sit among art and absorb it and in this my two second visits, did not disappoint.
Helen Yardley’s solo show of carpets that filled RCC’s three gallery spaces is stunning, with both floors and walls awash with sumptuous colour and gorgeous mark-making. I scrabbled in my box for inks and paint brushes and I was off. The footfall was slow: the sun was shining, I could see through Gallery 3’s window groups of bikers, parents with children and the ubiquitous ‘ladies-who-lunch’ sitting outside on the courtyard benches. It didn’t matter for I was entranced.
When the visitors did come (why is it always in a rush and several at once?) I was very conscious of the gorgeous juxtaposition of human form against the gestural marks and colours of the carpets – so much so that the drawings I made of the visitors became almost shadowy. Here, as in Oriel Davies with Shani Rhys James’ & Stephen West’s painting and drawings, the art dominated, seeming to sap the three-dimensional life and colour from its viewers.
For all the drip-drip of visitors at both RCC and OD, I still had some lovely encounters, like the Scottish woman at RCC (did she say she was from Aberdeen?) who now lives in Australia and who made a beeline for me, striding across the floor saying “Are you the Ellen Bell who writes for Embroidery magazine?”
A woman who quivered with life and energy (I watched as she circumnavigated the gallery, darting back and forth, as her husband sat reading the paper) she let me draw her as she spoke, breaking off at one point to ask if I wove, before telling me that she was a ‘free-knitter’. Later, she crossed the floor towards me once more, calling out “Does anyone know how many hand-tufters are left in Yorkshire?”
And then there was the artist and educator from St Asaph. She’d just come from giving a talk about self-employment to a group of art students. “Do you know, not one of them had thought of becoming self-employed?” she said.
“I’ve been an artist all my life,” she said, “I weave, sculpt, paint….”. After she’d left a couple walked past. “Keep moving,” I heard the woman hiss to her husband, “or you’ll be drawn.”
Just after midday a huddle of people came in making straight for Gallery 2 to watch Helen Yardley’s video en masse after which, they were all sent, armed with drawing boards and pastels, to find a ‘rug’ to draw. What a gift. (One of the gallery staff told me later that they were a group of people with dementia and their carers who come to RCC once a week for an art session.)
It was wonderful to draw them as they drew – they were so absorbed. At one point one of them stood up holding her arms up in the air. “Has anyone got any wipes,” she said, “I don’t like getting my hands dirty.” (I felt like openly commiserating with her. Since doing my daily drawing practice my fingers have developed permanent ink stains.)
The slowness of footfall in both spaces meant that I spent more time not only engaging with the artworks myself but noticing, and indeed sensing, the gallery spaces themselves. In RCC I could hear the soft, comforting hum of voices from the shop and reception while in OD it was the clatter of crockery and the pungent smell of garlic from the newly opened café.
Wanting to sit among a different set of paintings and drawings, I worked in OD’s back gallery this time. It was an intense experience; even with my back to some of them I felt their presence behind me.
Most visitors didn’t stay long, some even racing through (perhaps it wasn’t what they expected). Most smiled, or at least acknowledged me. One woman stopped to talk.
She’d recently retired (from working for an architect, I think she said, was it her husband?) and was taking up art again. She’d been attending various classes and had joined a non-tutored group but was dissatisfied with it. “All they do is chat,” she said.
I’ve noticed how much bolder I become once I’ve been drawing in the galleries for an hour or so, even going so far as to make a drawing of RCC’s director as he spoke to me.
From my position in OD’s back gallery I saw three women arrive and seat themselves (with the help of chairs brought in from the Education Room) smack bang in front of Rhys James’ painting with the candelabra. I moved in closer. “We’ve got an artist working in there today,” I heard the Education Officer say.
They spoke in Welsh and appeared to be discussing the Eisteddfod (with my poor grasp of the language, I could be completely wrong).
It was not only the power of the artworks but the speed in which people engaged with the works in OD’s back gallery that forced me to capture them as blurs, as shadows, and in some cases – particularly with the drawings – they almost became physically absorbed or even lost.
That’s the wonder (and the challenge) of responsive drawing; you have to go beyond the regular, the tried and tested, you are forced to. And sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
One of OD’s gallery staff suggested I pop into the Education Room to see the drawings a group of children had made of the exhibition (I think she said that they were seven years old). Most had responded to the ‘candelabra’ painting. “They saw it like a spider,” she said. The drawings were marvellous. So unselfconscious.
I think the thing that has most surprised me after these two months is how exhausting reportage drawing is. Every part of me has to be alert, awake and fired-up. It’s a tough state to maintain beyond 2-3 hours.
Nevertheless, I left both galleries exhilarated and eager to see what the next visits will bring my practice.
