Yesterday I went to art class at Vanda's and we had a lovely day working on the theme of memory.
First we drew an object (or landscape) in pencil. I drew a bottle of Quink ink. Vanda copied all our drawings. Then we were told to rub it out with an eraser. Part of me was reluctant to destroy what I had spent 15 minutes carefully drawing, but the other part of me said "get on with it - you are here to learn". So I hammered into it with a putty rubber, and what was left was a faded image, that showed in detail where I had pressed a bit harder. It created a wonderful image of a "memory" of an ink bottle. And it was a better drawing than the original!
Then we had to draw an image using a biro pressed heavily on thin paper, resting on a softer paper. This left an embossed image of the drawing. We rubbed into the embossing with graphite on the end of our fingers so the embossing became clear. Vanda tore up the biro drawings, and the embossing became the memory of the drawing. Lovely.
The last exercise of the morning was to look at the quink bottle for 15 minutes, then remove the object, and draw what we could remember from the observation (not what we thought it looked like! I managed a lot of the darkest bits, but completely forgot the streaky bits where the ink was draining down the inside of the bottle.
After lunch I drew the quink bottle in charcoal and rubbed it away (not very successful) and Vanda suggested drawing on top of it so the faded image became the memory. I then created a multiple layered drawing using charcoal, charcoal rag, pencil, fine liner and pen & ink. This was too busy, although individually they were quite good. They might have worked well as a two layered drawing but 7 layers was too much! However when little areas were isolated, they worked very well, and might have been useful to cut out little selections to incorporate into another drawing, thereby forming fragments of memory.
During the day Vanda pulled me on my use of the term "middle age, middle class women". I have big issues with such women. So last night I had a one hour argument with myself about why I have such issues. Basically I have identified behaviours that I dislike from individuals I know, where what they have in common is that they are middle age, middle class women, although I can see these behaviours are not exclusive to this group. Hmmm. How's that for prejudice!! However, to elaborate on my views: it centres around attitudes to money, self importance and to narrow mindedness. When I was a shift worker, I belonged to a gym (expensive!) and did classes at varied times of day. Other attenders (entirely women) at the morning classes, were often high maintenance, stay at home, women who spent a lot of time and money on clothes, make-up, nails, hair, and handbags and who seemed to have a lot of conversations about "we must do lunch" or where they bought their latest fashion accessory. They seem to spend a lot of time "shopping", and what is important is that everything matches, or is colour co-ordinated. I also noted such women often drove the big 4x4 cars, parked in the disabled parking bays, and rushed into Sweatbox classes, while the arthritic lady going to the yoga who walked with a stick, had to walk across the car park having parked in an ordinary available space. I also listened to their conversations about topical issues such as immigration and politics, and thought that they had rarely had a conversation with or listened to the points of view of people who are different to them. I accept that my views will be different from theirs, partly because although I live in a largely white area (could not afford to live in London), I worked in a very diverse area where my colleagues and staff were black/white, straight/gay, old/young, men/women, manual/office workers, native born/migrants, multiple faiths. As shift workers, you had time on off-peak shifts to talk to each other about all sorts of things. I am incredibly grateful that the diversity of my workplace enlarged my mindset and expanded my life experience. However it has meant I am disdainful of people who cannot see that there are many right answers (ie not just your own), depending on your life experience. And the people I meet who fuel my prejudice, seem to be middle age, middle class women - affluent from other people's money, living in a narrow environment, spending a lot of time and money thinking about themselves as superior to others.
This led on to another conversation about the difficulties tutors are having in the higher education system of today, where young people (in particular) are struggling with the self directed learning style of UK universities. They struggle with a problem, and expect to be told the answer by the tutor. As a mature student, I have struggled with this myself. But Vanda provided an enlightening insight, by saying that where Government targets have measured school performances, many children are coached through SATS by private tuition, often from age 5. This means they are used to there being "one right answer" and having an adult coach them on a one-to-one basis, providing the answers all the way through, to jump through hoops "to a high standard"! As I have no children, I have no experience of the schools system, and I had not expected people to be educated with the concept of "one right answer". I have 30 years work experience in a diverse community, where the accommodation of "many right answers" was the norm. Maybe it's me who is out of step! Hmm! Now there's a shock!
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