Take a box or a pile of books. Throw some cloth over it, or a t-shirt. Put an old lace-up boot on top of this. Look at this pile, say to yourself “this is really beautiful, I’ve got to draw this.” Turn off your phone, grab a soft pencil and a piece of paper, sit down for a couple of hours and make a work of art.
I didn’t take a shot of the still life, but the above describes its simplicity. How ordinary. How intriguing!
It’s not about documenting the silly boot. It’s about, how can I see this in a new way, surprising myself in the process. As you look at Gaby’s drawing, remind yourself that the boot and the laces were black. She invented the inversion. She chose the placement of the boot way on top and its radical incompletion. The laces set up a paradox: we are reminded of the arbitrariness of their real-life softness and at the same time they appear to support the thing at the top, which we identify as a shoe with the help of the crisscrossing at upper right.
The drawing plays with your perception. Shoe-notshoe. Laces-notlaces. Form-content. As an exercise in seeing, notice repetition of forms, rhythm, positive-negative space. When you’ve said everything about the drawing that you notice, you will still be fascinated by it. You can’t talk this thing to death. It’s art.
All contents copyright (C) 2010 Katherine Hilden. All rights reserved.
artamaze by Katherine Hilden 