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Winter Quarter Essay — January 2005

The Coexistence Exhibition and the Practice of Art
by Andrew Rush   ©2004

As one of the Tucson community sponsors of the Coexistence Exhibition (see Announcements inside this newsletter or the TDS website), we at The Drawing Studio are very engaged in this remarkable show of forty billboards by artists from all over the world to be installed on the University of Arizona Mall for the month of February 2005. In this essay I would like to offer some personal thoughts about how the practice of art shows us, in art as in life, it is our differences rather than our similarities that inspire new creation.

When I first saw some of the artist-made images from the Coexistence Exhibition and read a little of the commentary by its curator, Raphie Etgar, something about the fundamental nature of 'differences' as a pivotal place from which to re-think the world resonated with me as an artist. The word 'Coexistence' also curiously rescued me from my depression over our recent overdose of angry and polarized politics, and reminded me of the kind of sanity that the rich variety of the visible world inspires in me when I am drawing.

Years ago the visionary designer Buckminster Fuller noted that in his experience most concepts that appeared to be 'opposites' are almost always present in the same action. For example, a rope that is being stretched from either end is said to be in tension. But if one is watching from the side, the rope is also becoming narrower, that is, its fibers are also compressing inward at ninety degrees to the axis of the tension. Hence the qualities of tension and compression are not opposites, said Fuller, but rather 'co-relative'. He demonstrated this principle of co-relativity in many ways that came to be known as synergy. With this simple shift from a polarized model to a model of co-existing relatedness, he created one of those rare paradigm shifts in architectural engineering that matches the appearance of the arch or the invention of Ferro-concrete.

'Bucky' as everyone called him, was in his life and work a joyful celebrant of the privilege of life and the freshness of vision that is at the root of creativity. He was the first to point out that there is no throwing anything away because there is no 'away'. Or that we have not used up our natural resources at all, we have merely 'misplaced' them. He would have so enjoyed the principle of the Coexistence exhibition, an artists' gentle challenge to the pessimism of our time.

All these facets of Coexistence also resonate with my artist's devotion to drawing from observation--my daily reminder to look at things as they are--that is, to 'coexist' with the world for a little while instead of doing my usual art thing. Because in life, we all share an entropic tendency to stay with what is familiar and comfortable. Artists are no different. We often spend years developing work methods and subjects that can become a ritual-like trance, a kind of self-referential closed world. Without new challenges one is inevitably confined, to paraphrase Picasso, 'by yesterday's form that is today's prison'.

How then might we address this entropic tendency, the siren song of the familiar? Answer: Look to the most creative people you know. And most of the creative people I know, intentionally and often set up ways to challenge themselves. Self-challenge is the wellspring of creativity, characterized by deliberate action that launches me into a place where I don't know, where I am once again a clumsy and vulnerable beginner.

Self-challenge takes many forms. It may look like travel or a meditation practice. It may look like learning a sport or studying a new language or signing up to help at a homeless shelter or making a new friend from another culture. Or it may be the simple daily challenge of drawing from the living world to connect me to something 'other' than myself.

At 73, my reputation as an artist, for good or ill, rests upon a visible and public body of work that spans over fifty years. You would think I could be coasting by now. And yet no matter how well my studio projects may be going, I still like to devote a part of my working day to a drawing assignment. For a little while, I challenge myself by going through the same struggle and discomfort as my beginning students, by looking upon a new subject, exploring the strangeness of this new 'seeing', and then finding a way to represent my experience on paper. And like my students, after each session of drawing with that kind of concentrated attention to what is 'out there', I emerge refreshed and a little more open to the world, a state that often brings new insights to my studio projects.

I invite you to use the Coexistence Exhibition to meditate with me as we do when we draw: 1) to reflect on the 'suchness' of all life, so different and yet so related; 2) to consider the possibility of respecting what we don't know; and 3) to explore with an open mind, without an agenda of challenging or changing.

©2004 Andrew Rush. May not be copied or reproduced in any form without permission