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Spring Quarter Essay — March 2007

Life without a Net
by Andrew Rush   ©2007

We who live in the 21st century find ourselves awash in a sea of visual imagery unprecedented in any other time in history. This phenomenon has given rise to a broad new interest in the foundation of visual intelligence far beyond the professional art world. People from all walks of life are asking, “Where do images come from?” “How are they made and communicated?” “How can I actively participate?” A few art educators over time have noted that a basic source of answers to these questions lies in the studio practices of art rather than in intellectual knowledge. The Drawing Studio is predicated on a new need to make these practices accessible and relevant to all. 

To begin, a small confession: When we began The Drawing Studio in 1992, it was, in my own mind at least, a kind of private laboratory for my teaching experiments. While it was true that many people enjoyed and learned art skills from me in those first years, I was more focused on developing a new strategy for art learning than I was concerned about what might be happening to the students who were passing through my hands.

But as time has passed, I began to invite new master teachers to join us because more students just kept coming, and mostly by word-of-mouth. Not only were they coming, but also I began to notice that, unlike most art institutions, no one seemed to be leaving. The Drawing Studio, in other words, has quietly been taking on a life of its own.  Kindred art practitioners, professional and non-professional, at all levels of skill, have been forming friendships and relationships. A TDS community is evolving, generated from ‘the bottom up’ by people from many walks of life who want to be part of such a permanent guild for making art together as a lifelong process of learning and practice. 

It is so obvious when I reflect back upon my own student art school days, that the comradeship of learning together was such an essential part of what nourished our souls as artists. But that guild aspect was invisible to me until I was on my own, trying to develop a body of work like most artists, meaning mostly alone. Gradually it has begun to occur to me that people in the performing arts (music, theatre, dance, etc.) continue working and learning with each other long after their school days are over, often over their whole lives. Why would we think that visual artists could live withoutthe regular opportunity to share and receive feedback from others who practice too?

The Drawing Studio is expanding because it is redefining itself not as a specialized profession, but as a central conversation that engages all of us, young and old, who love the practice of art as a medium of communication and personal expression. We have come to recognize that at whatever level of studio skill one finds oneself at any given moment, or whatever our ‘day job’ may be, we are always colleagues in the process, as we practice in classes, in open drawing sessions, in our workshops, seminars, excursions and exhibitions. Thankfully many step up as well to volunteer time and skills in the work of administering our vibrant and growing organization.

Of course we need and have many brilliant professional artist/teachers to give shape and leadership to the learning. But those of us trained by the professional art schools, like me, risk becoming quietly irrelevant to this new spirit of art learning together, as long as we cling to old notions about art as an esoteric mystery, a province reserved exclusively for an inner circle of artists who treat the study of art as secret knowledge. In this context, even though I am The Drawing Studio’s educational founder, I find myself as much a student as everyone else.

At TDS we are now scrambling to respond to the growth of what is essentially a uniquely new kind of art community, one centered upon the practices and skills of visual learning as an essential component of all our lives. Past models from my educational life give me not a clue about how to teach, operate, finance, and plan for this dazzling, unexpected turn of events. Luckily, in some ways I don’t have to, because our growing body of TDS partners point the way, with many new suggestions for expanding The Drawing Studio into the kind of permanent home for studio art learning that is appropriate to our busy lives. Let me say it is both exciting and scary as hell to be, at the age of 75, at the cutting edge of yet another new adventure, which I have come to call ‘Life without a Net’.

 

©2007 Andrew Rush. May not be copied or reproduced in any form without permission