An Active Line Sets Out On Its Way Freely Without Any Target…

WHAT
What does it mean to draw? What does one need to draw? Normally, I need a blank sheet of paper in front of me, and I easily fill it with shapes. The resulting drawings might differ each time, but the activity is very much the same. Drawing is a simple and obvious activity – so far as I can see what I’m doing. When my eyes are shut or covered, and my pencil gets lost without the help of the margins of the paper, then I have to rethink the activity of drawing. For how can I draw blind, with out seeing? How does it feel to act upon the instructions of someone else? How can I paint and draw relying completely on non-visual information? This was our exercise this time.

WHERE
In the Marble Hall, one of the grand galleries in Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest. (www. szepmuveszeti.hu). The workshop ‘Join us, create your own art’’ was organised by the Education Department of the Museum as part of the Museum + programme (link) which are open to all Museum visitors. Live jazz music and a small tapas bar are also situated close by in the Marble Hall. 

WHEN
18.00 – 21.00, Thursday. February 4, 2010

WHO
FACILITATORS AND STAFF
Zsófia László, Museum Educator
Litza Juhász, Museum Educator
 
ADULT LEARNERS
Thirty learners participated, both male and female, of various ages. There were young couples as well as elderly ones, families with kids, friendly companions. As the task required cooperation, individuals usually hesitated to join in. When they did, as in the case of tour guides working at the museum, they were assisted by myself, Zsófi László. People who had come together assisted each other.

WHY
1.    To redirect the participant’s attraction from the result to the process of creativity.
2.    To encourage the profound observation of visuality and the reliable communication of perceptions; to enrich the participant’s vocabulary and to improve his/her ability to find the most telling expressions.
3.    To improve the participant’s verbal and non-verbal communication; to encourage him/her to rely completely on someone else while keeping this reliance fully under the control of cognition.
4.    To improve the ability of mental concentration.
5.    To make the skill of orientation a reflected process. Normally, a glance at the paper margin does the trick; here however, orientation is achieved through learning, which also improves the ability to adapt.

HOW
We provided the participants with reproductions of pictures on display in the museum’s permanent exhibition. Some of these pictures were already known to them, others not.
We asked single participants to copy one of the pictures without looking at the paper. They had to hold it in an upright position next to their chest. Others, accompanied by friends or relatives, were asked to form a team of two. One of them, blindfolded, had to draw the unseen picture following the instructions their partner told them. The assistant instructed his/her partner either by verbally describing the picture or by leading his/her drawing hand, or by both methods one after the other.

VALUE FOR LEARNERS
Several people were too shy to participate, but attracted enough to follow up the exercise and to remark, Iit’s great that so many are playing.’ Not only observers, but also a majority of the participants felt that it was a game rather than an exercise, ‘I wouldn’t draw on my own initiative. But playing like this is a good thing and I’d do this with pleasure other times as well.’ Some were more thoughtful and reflected upon what happened to them when drawing, ‘It’s strange that I lose my ability to find my way around or and orient myself on the paper.’

According to two middle-aged school teachers (who both did the exercise for individuals,) ‘This is a very hard cognitive challenge’ that could be utilized in school as well. Later that day one of our participating museum guides explained to her audience ‘The various levels of the observation and description of pictures’ by referring to her recent experience.

VALUE FOR FACILITATORS
I was surprised to see how much the cooperative nature of the task encouraged people both to take part and to act freely. Of course my aid and assistance were sometimes required, and I too had an opportunity to experience how difficult it is to describe and explain a picture for someone who doesn’t actually see it. It was all the more instructive for me as I do something very similar day by day, though in a different context, when I speak as a museum guide facing my audience and turning my back to the pictures I describe.

I didn’t expect that so many participants would be so eager to experience both roles of the instructor and the instructed. The cooperation worked amazingly well and smoothly between partners closely associated (old friends, husband and wife), but proved to be a major challenge full of conflicts for that family whose several members tried to instruct the daughter, a university student, together. Despite their eventual fierce quarrels with each other they enjoyed the situation, taking it for a sort of team-building training, and took the drawing home to complete and finish it after the workshop ended.  

It was also very instructive to see that a young man who came alone achieved something quite impressive after some experimenting with blind-drawing. His example has proven that it is skill that someone can learn, no matter how strange and difficult the task might seem at the first glance.