On October 30, with my friend Adam Katz, we hosted our first life drawing session at Zuccotti Park during the Wall Street occupation.
We drew police officers:
We brought boards, paper, pencils and charcoal:
We looked like this (Julia Sherman):
I drew this:
Other people drew these:
Adam drew us:
I made a Flickr set with photographs of all the drawings:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sanpedrogluestick/sets/72157629020808309/
And I uploaded high res images here:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/xi910s
(Please share and circulate)
One of the catalysts for this project came on October 15th, when I made this photograph and thought: doesn’t the officer look just like a model posing for a life drawing class?
And there is something interesting about the act of seeing. Seeing as an act of power, as of surveillance, as one who surveys, one who looks over:
And a different kind seeing. An observation not about domination, but of elongated attention. Of spending time with something. Of light and shadow and space. Of noticing and of appreciation. A kind of looking that is not passive at all, but very active. (Giorgio Morandi looking)
And these exchanges of vision are not always hostile. A drawing of Officer Reyes:
Is given to Officer Reyes (and he smiles):
This project was multi-authored. Most of the drawings are unsigned, and I can’t remember who drew them. Some friends joined in, others who had read about it online, and some joined who were just in the area. I would credit all those who drew, but I can’t remember everybody. Carmelle! Sophie! Taeyoon! Anne! Denise! Julia! Who else???
Three drawing sessions occurred before the Occupation was raided.
(I only attended the first one because I went to Oslo:
Stockholm:
and Bergen:
)
If more sessions occur, I will post them. If the drawings get exhibited, I will post it. If you wan’t to do your own police life drawing, DO IT!
This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 25th, 2012 at 12:48 pm.