Arthur Hoener

Karl Fortess Audio Archive

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KARL FORTESS AUDIO ARCHIVE

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ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

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INTEVIEW WITH ARTHUR HOENER

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ALTERNATE TEXT

01— Karl E. Fortess

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AUDIO ARCHIVE

Karl Eugene Fortess (1907–1993) was a painter purpose, and their reflections on teaching and and printmaker who headed the School of Visual learning. The full list of interviews includes many Arts printmaking department from 1956 to 1973. prominent American artists of the twentieth cenBeginning in the early 1960s, he undertook a major tury, among them Romare Bearden, Ruth Gikow, artist interview project, creating 269 “audio-porLouise Bourgeois, Helen Frankenthaler, Philip traits” (sound recording interviews) of prominent Guston, Alex Katz, Jacob Lawrence, Adolph American artists. Fortess believed that art stuGottlieb, Barbara Swan, and Gyorgy Kepes. dents needed and wanted to learn about the inner All original Fortess recordings are stored at lives of artists in addition to their techniques and Boston University’s. Howard Gotlieb Archicraftsmanship. His interviews focused on the artval Research Center. Fortess gave the School ists’ career development, their sources of influof Visual Arts cassette copies of his interviews, ence and inspiration, their self-understandings of which were recently digitized for student access.

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02— Hoener, flanked by his twin daughters, is receiving his state lottery winnings of $100,000 after having already won a million dollars in an earlier lottery.

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Arthur Hoener was an American artist, educator of Art, where he ran the graphic design departborn in Brooklyn, 1933. He was a YADDO fellow, ment; and also at Hampshire College, MA. 1968; recipient Boston Art Directors Club award Hoener was involved with Timothy Leary in studdistinctive merit, 1964, 67, 68. Trustee Unitarian ies conducted at Harvard concerning the effects Society, Northampton, 1974-1976. Member of New of LSD on the creative process in the early England Contemporary Artists (chairman 1963-1967). 1960s, and published an illustrated essay on the He studied graphic design at The Cooper Union, subject in the summer 1963 issue of ‘The Harvard New York, and then received his bachelor and Review.’He exhibited widely, showing paintings, master’s degrees at Yale University, where he drawings and his distinctive wood sculpture, studied with Josef Albers. He went on to teach at and died in 1987.

Boston University (where his students included the young Brice Marden, who has spoken in interviews about Hoener's influence); Massachusetts College

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KARL FORTESS Arthur Hoener, to what extent is an artist like you dealing with materials?

ATHUR HOENER I used to do a lot of experimentation with materials. I used to think it was very important. I am beginning to think more and more that-

MATERIALS ARE A VEHICLE FOR

CARRYING THE IDEA AND NOT TO BE OVER ACCENTUATED, OVER PLAYED. You see more and more people who are getting into plastics and working with plastics and all of a sudden, any idea that they might have had is unnoticed because it’s out of the window.

03— DUET 1981,Acrylic on canvas, 121.9 × 121.9 cm (48 × 48 in.)

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So, did you settle down to one or two mediums that you work in?

What are you working on mostly now?

What’s your material that you use most often?

Or you, I hope... (gets cut off)

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No that will be too easy (laughs nervously).

I keep exploring materials and generally when I move from one material to another it’s because...uh...the idea I have been working with leads me to working with another idea…uh another group of materials.

RATHER THAN WORKING WITH MATERIALS, FROM THE MATERIAL COMES THE IDEA. I guess you would say wood, umm…and wood mainly because it can be shaved, and lasered. I can’t shave plastics now.

If I could get plastic rods, really square without those crummy little ridges you know, that would…I would be working with that because in a way that would express what I want to express more completely. But since they can’t make plastic that way, I can get wood milled to a square and work with it.

Are you a sculptor then, or a painter?

Well sculptors’ kind of deny me, and painters (chuckles) look at me now and say “he is doing sculpture”. I think, that in my… sculpture, I have brought a number of painterly ideas which disturb…some people. I find it very exciting because…

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A PAINTING CAN EXIST IN SPACE, CAN EXIST WITHIN A FORM AND NOT JUST BE F LAT AND I LIKE THAT IDEA.

Well if someone had to categorize you, which I am sure you have been categorized by critics, or called names…

All sorts of names!

If somebody called you, a Romantic Realist, do you think you would like that particular label?

I AM AN ABSTRACTIONIST!

That certainly covers a lot of ground doesn’t it.

YEAH… AND I SUSPECT THAT CONSTRUCTIVISM HAS A GOOD DEAL TO DO WITH WHAT I DO. You wouldn’t object to being called a Constructivist, then, would you?

How did you get into… How did you get into the business of being an artist? Was there anything in your background, in your family that lead you to this?

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No.

My mother was uh... rather insistent that all her boys get involved with the arts in one way or another. My older brother played the clarinet and played it very well.

When did you get to 95% art school?

But the music teacher gave up on me– after three lessons. Yeah, I could never make it! (Arthur and Karl laughs)And my younger brother also had some musical talent. After two or three years, being very disturbed that her middle son wasn’t getting any art training, she found a local artist in town who gave art lessons to children and I was offered to study drawing.

Well, when I went to Cooper union.

And despite the fact I had studied drawing and painting I worked at local museums on Saturdays. I found coming from New Jersey, that... people just were... really did not know what was really going on in the art world. And at Cooper, I started hearing strange names like Picasso, Matisse, Magritte and um…

I found that I really did not know much about the arts at all. So, I had to do a good deal of extra studying which I think was a good thing I... I think that was…

Once I decided that I wanted to be an 04— artist, uh and and then took the step PLAQUE #1 SCULPTURE Honduras and got into this pretty little school mahogany, acrylic 1965. Signed, dated, and titled on reverse, dia. which was by accident.

9 in. The collection of John Boyer.

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05— Details of painting number 04

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06— UNTITLED Pen & ink on paper, 1957, signed in ink and dated lower-right, on cream wove paper

Without family opposition?

Family wasn’t happy about it, but without opposition. I think they… they would have preferred me to have gone into something that had some kind of future (Arthur and Karl laughs)

(laughing) That’s a very good… very good point!

And uh... but I...when I did go to New York I found people were able to talk about, knew things that I didn’t know. And so,

AT A REASONABLE AGESTARTED LEARNING A LOT, AND I PROBABLY LEARNED THINGS IN A VERY DIFFERENT WAY. My first, my first objective was to be a designer, and started taking it very seriously after I got out of school. And I was able to achieve that. I became a pretty good designer, I think. Then in my last 07— Painted sculptural form. Rectangular mahogany block with acrylic painting.

Signed and dated 1966 on the base.

6 5/8 × 2 1/2 in. Weston MA Estate.

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year at Cooper, Nicholas Marsicano was my teacher and...he was just magnificent you know and uh… there was something about him as a person that excited me very much. I decided that when I, when I left school that I was going to continue to study painting and I was fortunate enough to find that Marsicano was teaching at the local museum! So, I used to go out there once a week to study painting with him. The first thing he said to me when I walked into his class was, ‘Why don’t you study with someone else?’ I said, ‘Who?’ he said, ‘Well, why don’t you study with Hoffman?’ So I studied with Hoffman for a year and a half on 8th street. By that time, I had moved fairly rapidly into the design circles in New York; and became more and more involved with my painting and asked Hoffman questions to which he would throw his hands up and say ‘I don’t deal with that, if you want to learn about color that way, study with Albers. If you want to learn about such and such study with someone else. If you are studying with me, you study this.’ (chuckles). And so I went out to study with Albers.

08— Details of painting TWIST. Pen & ink on illustration board, 1977, signed in pencil and dated lower-right, titled on the reverse.

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Have you had any teachers that, that uh… really bugged you? That, that… you had trouble with or did you manage to get along with most of the people? You mentioned that Marsicano apparently a strong influence in your art.

I am trying to find out whether there were any teachers that you had and you couldn’t tolerate at all!

Only a photography teacher. (laughs)

09— Details of painting INVERTED MIRAGE Pen & ink on illustration board, 1977, signed in pencil and dated lower-right, titled on the reverse; sheet 30 x 40 in.

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You don’t have to mention his name.

Well, what kind of student were you?

No, he was also really good for me, looking back on it. He insisted that I get to his class on time and I never did that. And uh... (laughs) he locked me out one day, and I was absolutely furious. And umm… but I did learn to get to class on time after that!

I suspect that many of the teachers thought that I was a bit of a nut because when someone mentioned something that I didn’t know about, I would look it up so that next time I talk with them, I would discuss the area with them. Very often, I was always two weeks behind them, three weeks behind them! (laughs) But I stayed with it and now here again,

THE IDEA OF NOT HAVING THE BACKGROUND, ANY, ANY BACKGROUND WHEN I STARTED TO STUDY, MADE EVERYTHING THAT I CAME IN CONTACT WITH VERY EXCITING!

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09—Details of painting INVERTED MIRAGE Pen & ink on illustration board, 1977, signed in pencil and dated lower-right, titled on the reverse; sheet 30 x 40 in

So, an awful lot of stuff you had to dig for yourself?

Yeah! How else would you learn?

THE ONLY THING YOU CAN EXPECT THE TEACHER TO DO, IS TO EXPOSE YOU TO A PARTICULAR AREA.

Now you have been doing a lot of teaching over a long period of time. Have you formulated any kind of attitude, any kind of philosophy about your teaching?

And if they are talking about something and they mention a work, they mention somebody’s work and you don’t know it, you have no idea what they are talking about unless you look it up!

Yes, I have and I continually, continually worry about it. Because when I first started teaching I knew exactly what to teach because I was straight out of graduate school. AndI wondered more and-

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more really, what you can teach in terms of the arts and what makes sense for students to study? Certainly, you can teach someone to ‘perform’ to do a particular thing, a task. But is that task really going to help them to grow up as an artist? In some way, it’s part of the same dilemma that you get into with materials.

WHEN YOU JUST GET INTO MATERIALS, AND STUDY MATERIALS, AND YOU LET THE MATERIALS DICTATE TO YOU WHAT YOU’RE THINKING SHOULD BE, YOU ARE REALLY NOT DOING YOUR OWN THINKING. THE MATERIALS ARE DOING YOUR THINKING FOR YOU. SO, IF YOU CHAIN… THE STUDENT TO PERFORM A PARTICULAR TASK, THE TASK THEN DICTATES HIS THINKING 10— COLOR ACTION DRAWINGINTERNAL ECHO

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RATHER THAN HIS THINKING IN BEING ABLE TO DICTATE WHAT TECHNIQUES OR TASKS HE NEEDS TO ACCOMPLISH. So, I like to think in terms of teaching, In terms of….the thought that generates a particular work. I run into trouble with this because very often, students...don’t have any thoughts that are worthwhile translating (laughs), or even are thoughts.

And...a couple of years ago, I found myself in the position of having to teach a course in calligraphy. It opened up some insights to me, and that if-

YOU KEEP THINKING THE COURSE WHICH IS ESSENTIALLY UH…NEUTERED IN TERMS OF STYLE, THAT HAS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH WHAT IS GOING ON IN THE ART WORLD, AND CAN BRING DEEPLY NOTHING TO IT.

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So, the student has to start stretching his imagination, his mind, you end up deal11— ing with ideas, you end up dealing with Details of painting UNTITLED pen and ink drawing, 1959, signed and dated a very tight framework, to think, to crelower-left, on off-white wove paper; sheet 11 x 16 inches ate, you end up dealing with really very rewarding results for everyone!

Since your work has a very decidedly strong personal quality, have you run into a situation where you had students imitate you? And what is your attitude about that?

Aside from your immediate, kind of influence, that you may have, what do you generally think of a student picking an influence other than his teachers?

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One of the nice things about students, and I think each year, they get more and more this way, they don’t look around ver y much (laughs). They don’t go out of their way to see their teacher’s work, three years after they studied with someone that they become curious with what they have done, so I don’t run into that problem too much.

Uh that’s a...that’s a different question.

I like to study another artist’s work with a student. I find that, that attitude is not as prevalent as it used to be. Students tend to think that all virtue of creativity is centered within their works. But when students did do it, and-

encourage them to, where they would really dig into a particular artist’s work, and study it and try to find what the essence of that work really is rather than the form. That’s, that’s a great experience if that student really wants to study! We can’t do that with. I can’t do that with my work because I am not sure what the essence is, and I am sure that they can!

So there has to be a some…what…? Ten, twenty year gap between looking at the thing and studying it. I don’t know if anyone can look into works that have been done yesterday and really see what’s going on with it.

How about your own, own sense of discipline? How do you govern yourself?

Do you set yourself a schedule or you are lazy almost like all the other painters..?

Or do you wait for inspiration and…?

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I don’t think I have ever been inspired, and then gotten anything done.

I don’t particularly like that word by the way,

WELL…THE ONLY INSPIRATION THAT I KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT IS SITTING DOWN, AND WORKING. THINGS HAPPEN. WHEN THOSE THINGS HAPPEN, YOU GET EXCITED AND I THINK THAT WHEN PEOPLE TALK ABOUT INSPIRATION, THIS IS WHAT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT. Inspiration??

Yeah.

WELL THE PEOPLE THAT I KNOW WHO WORK…WORK!

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12—UNTITLED pen & ink on paper, 1957, signed in ink and dated lower-right, on cream wove paper; in very good condition image 5 3/4 x 9 inches sheet 12 1/2 x 16 1/2 inches

Well how about you?

Do you manage to work pretty steadily?

Have you had any dull periods? Couple of weeks or months where you couldn’t get into the studio and do anything?

I work every evening, I work anytime that I have infrom school, and I work weekends.

So I don’t find any…the only problem that I have with my work, is, finding enough time to get the ideas that I have done!

Every once in a while. The last time was just rather recently…

FOR THE MOST PART, WHEN I WORK CONTINUALLY, THE DULL PERIODS DON’T COME UP AS OFTEN. As if you’re on and off, you tend to set up a pattern of hot and cold… and when that does happen, you still go to the studio and if it means sweeping floor or cleaning up or whatever, that studio and the works in it and the thing that you work with turns 13— UNTITLED pen & ink on paper, 1958, out to remain very friendly. And if you signed in ink and dated lower-right, on cream wove paper; in very good stay out of it, it becomes a strange room condition. Image 11 x 11 inches and that only compounds your problems. sheet 14 x 16 1/2 inches

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Do you have any other interests outside your studio? I don’t know whether to call you a painter or a sculptor but what things inter-

est you as an artist outside your studio?

You’ve gotten him over to the Peabody museum yet?

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Just about the whole world…I find interesting. I am still interested in business, I am still interested in design, I am interested in what the art industry does, am interested in what people do, I am interested in what other artists do!

As my children get older, I become more interested in what they are interested in. I have a son who has become very interested in mineralogy, and he has made quite a collection of rocks! Well for him to make the type of collection that he wants, I have taken him places and when I am take him places, I went out and tap on the rock and it’s kind of exciting!

Oh yeah!

What?

Yeah. There is this interesting…interesting thing. Here is this young man, who has difficulty in school, mainly because he finds school a little dull. He is in the fifth grade now. And he studied in the afternoon, with an ex- Harvard professor of mineralogy, and he knows more about mineralogy than the things he is supposed to know about in school! He loves it and works very hard at it! It seems to suggest something about what you do as a teacher.

SEEMS TO SUGGEST THAT IF YOU COULD DEVELOP THE KIND OF INTEREST THE STUDENT NEEDS, IN ORDER TO SUSTAIN ANY LEVEL OF ACTIVITY, THEN HIS WILL CERTAINLY BE ABLE TO DO IT!

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You understand my skipping around…You do go to the galleries, don’t you? You are very much aware of the contemporary scene, do you get disturbed by some of the things you see in the galleries? Do they enter your studio?

Do they bother you?

Do they please you?

What’s your reactions? That you have as a say as a visitor to galleries? I am speaking primarily of the contemporary work that you see.

Sometimes I am really excited by it, sometimes I think it’s a terrible bore.

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14—UNTITLED pen & ink on illustration board, 1979, signed in pencil and dated lower-right; some slight toning in the margins but otherwise in excellent condition. Sheet 30 x 40 in.

The thing thatupsets me most about a great many things, is that I see that they are not very well studied, understood,

I DEMAND A GREAT DEAL OF MYSELF AS AN ARTIST. I DON’T LET ANYTHING GET OUT OF MY STUDIO UNLESS IT COMES UP TO A CERTAIN VALUE LEVEL. AND I FIND THAT A GREAT MANY PEOPLE SEEM TO THINK THAT THE FACT THAT I HAVE DONE IT IS ENOUGH AND THAT ISN’T ENOUGH FOR ME.

But…you do get excited and you do get mad?

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I get upset when I see a show that is done by- someone who does not understand what they do. This may be something to say about the gallery system you know. But when I see a show where someone knows what they are doing and they do it well, it really turns me on!

I really don’t get angry just disappointed I guess. I have a great deal of respect for a guy who is willing to spend the time in the studio that you have to spend in order to get things done.

I HAVE A GREAT DEAL OF RESPECT FOR A GUY WHO IS WILLING TO DEVOTE HIS LIFE TO HIS ART!

Knowing something about you, this question may appear quite relevant. What about craft?

And I am sometimes disappointed that they don’t know what they are working with.

I THINK IT’S VERY IMPORTANT BECAUSE IF WHAT YOU ARE DOING, IS WORTHWHILE SAYING, YOU MIGHT AS WELL SAY IT AS WELL AS YOU POSSIBLY CAN. I can’t think of an idea from my past work that deserves a second-grade treatment.

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For a wind up, and this is probably the toughest question; What would you say to a student, you know, in a nutshell?

What kind of statement would you make to a student?

So, I always try to work the best quality craftmanship that I can. That does not necessarily mean, smooth, although right now it does. It does not necessarily mean highly polished. It means that the craft and the idea should be united.

It should be part of the same thought.

I hate to see things that are poorly made. If anything makes me angry, that’s it! (Karl laughs) You know, and then that goes for an automobile or a refrigerator, a pen or a piece of sculpture.

There are so many styles…there are so many different things going on, some of them you respond to, some of them you don’t respond to.

I THINK THAT THE MOST IMPORTANT THING YOU CAN DO IS TO TRY TO FIND OUT WHAT YOU AS AN INDIVIDUAL RESPOND TO RATHER THAN WHAT IS HAPPENING AT THE PRESENT TIME.

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IF YOU AT ANY TIME, TRY TO PLUG IN TO WHAT’S HAPPENING, YOU WILL BE LOST. BECAUSE WHAT’S HAPPENING NOW, YOU LEARN THAT, TOMORROW YOU ARE OUT OF DATE.

Thank you Arthur Hoener, this tape was recorded in June of 1969, in Boston Massachusetts.

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Well, if you can kind of learn what it is that you personally respond to, where you’re really at and work with that, then you never have to worry about the time passing you by, because you always will be right there where it’s happening.

Bellowing Bison. Paleolithic cave painting from Altamira, Spain. Drawing by Brevil. Prehistoric artists were probably thought to have magic powers.

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THE NEW DRAWING ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE BRAIN

by Betty Edwards

CHAPTER 1 DRAWING AND THE ART OF BICYCLE RIDING

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Roger N. Shepard, professor of psychology at Stanford University, recently described his personal mode of creative thought during which research ideas emerged in his mind as unverbalized, essentially complete, long-sought solutions to problems.

DRAWING IS A CURIOUS PROCESS,

so intertwined with seeing that the two can hardly be separated. Ability to draw depends on ability to see the way an artist sees, and this kind of seeing can marvelously enrich your life.

In many ways, teaching drawing is somewhat like teaching someone to ride a bicycle. It is very difficult to explain in words.

In teaching someone to ride a bicycle, you might say, ‘Well, you just get on, push the pedals, balance yourself, and off you'll go.’

Of course, that doesn't explain it at all, and you are likely finally to say, ‘I'll get on and show you how. Watch and see how I do it.’ And so it is with drawing. Most art teachers and drawing textbook authors exhort beginners to ‘change their ways of looking at things’ and to ‘learn how to see.’ The problem is that this different way of seeing is as hard to explain as how to balance a bicycle, and the teacher often ends by saying, in effect, ‘Look at these examples and just keep trying. If you practice a lot, eventually you may get it.’ While nearly everyone learns to ride a bicycle, many individuals never solve the problems of drawing. To put it more precisely, most people never learn to see well enough to draw.

DRAWING AS A MAGICAL ABILITY Because only a few individuals seem to possess the ability to see and draw, artists are often regarded as persons with a rare God- given talent. To many people, the process of drawing seems mysterious and somehow beyond human understanding.

Artists themselves often do little to dispel the mystery. If you ask an artist (that is, someone who draws well as a result

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of either long training or chance discovery of the artist's way ‘That in all of these sudden illumiof seeing), ‘How do you draw something so that it looks real- nations my ideas took shape in a say a portrait or a landscape?’ the artist is likely to reply, ‘Well, primarily visual-spatial form without, I just have a gift for it, I guess,’ or ‘I really don't know. I just start so far as I can introspect, any verbal in and work things out as I go along,’ or ‘Well, I just look at the intervention is in accor- dance with person (or the landscape) and I draw what I see.’ The last reply what has always been my preseems like a logical and straightforward answer. Yet, on reflec- ferred mode of thinking....Many tion, it clearly doesn't explain the process at all, and the sense of my happiest hours have since that the skill of drawing is a vaguely magical ability persists. childhood been spent absorbed in While this attitude of wonder at artistic skill causes people drawing, in tinkering, or in exerto appreciate artists and their work, it does little to encourage cises of purely mental visualization.’ individuals to try to learn to draw, and it doesn't help teachers — Roger N . Shepard, Visual Learning, explain to students the process of drawing. Often, in fact, people Thinking, and Communication, 1978 even feel that they shouldn't take a drawing course because they don't know already how to draw. This is like deciding that you shouldn't take a French class because you don't already speak French, or that you shouldn't sign up for a course in carpentry because you don't know how to build a house.

DRAWING AS A LEARNABLE, TEACHABLE SKILL You will soon discover that drawing is a skill that can be learned ‘Learning to draw is really a matter by every normal person with average eyesight and average eye- of learning to see—to see correctly— hand coordination—with sufficient ability, for example, to thread and that means a good deal more a needle or catch a baseball. Contrary to popular opinion, man- than merely looking with the eye.’ ual skill is not a primary factor in drawing. If your handwriting is — Kimon Nicolaides, The Natural readable, or if you can print legibly, you have ample dexterity to Way to Draw, 1941 draw well.

We need say no more here about hands, but about eyes we

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Gertrude Stein asked the French artist Henri Matisse whether, when eating a tomato, he looked at it the way an artist would. Matisse replied: ‘No, when I eat a tomato I look at it the way anyone else would. But when I paint a tomato, then I see it differently.’

— Gertrude Stein Picasso, 1938

cannot say enough. Learning to draw is more than learning the skill itself; by studying this book you will learn how to see. That is, you will learn how to process visual information in the special way used by artists. That way is different from the way you usually process visual information and seems to require that you use your brain in a different way than you ordinarily use it.

You will be learning, therefore, something about how your brain handles visual information. Recent research has begun to throw new scientific light on that marvel of capability and complexity, the human brain. And one of the things we are learning is how the special properties of our brains enable us to draw pictures of our perceptions.

DRAWING AND SEEING The magical mystery of drawing ability seems to be, in part at least, an ability to make a shift in brain state to a different mode ‘The painter draws with his eyes, not of seeing/perceiving. When you see in the special way in which with his hands. Whatever he sees, experienced artists see, then you can draw. This is not to say that ifhe sees it clear, he can put down. the drawings of great artists such as Leonardo da Vinci or RemThe putting of it down requires, per- brandt are not still wondrous because we may know something haps, much care and labor, but no about the cerebral process that went into their creation. Indeed, more muscular agility than it takes scientific research makes master drawings seem even more for him to write his name. Seeing remarkable because they seem to cause a viewer to shift to the clear is the important thing.’ artist's mode of perceiving. But the basic skill of drawing is also — Maurice Grosser, The Painter's accessible to everyone who can learn to make the shift to the Eye, 1951 artist's mode and see in the artist's way.

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THE ARTIST'S WAY OF SEEING: A TWOFOLD PROCESS Drawing is not really very difficult. Seeing is the problem, or, to be more specific, shifting to a particular way of seeing. You may not believe me at this moment. You may feel that you are seeing things just fine and that it's the drawing that is hard. But the opposite is true, and the exercises in this book are designed to help you make the mental shift and gain a twofold advantage. First, to open access by conscious volition to the visual, perceptual mode of thinking in order to experience a focus in your awareness, and second, to see things in a different way. Both will enable you to draw well.

Many artists have spoken of seeing things differently while drawing and have often mentioned that drawing puts them into a somewhat altered state of awareness. In that different subjective state, artists speak of feeling transported, ‘at one with the work,’ able to grasp relationships that they ordinarily cannot grasp.

Awareness of the passage of time fades away and words recede from consciousness. Artists say that they feel alert and aware yet are relaxed and free of anxiety, experiencing a pleasurable, almost mystical activation ofthe mind.

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‘It is in order to really see, to see ever deeper, ever more intensely, hence to be fully aware and alive, that I draw what the Chinese call ‘The Ten Thousand Things’ around me. Drawing is the discipline by which I constantly rediscover the world. I have learned that what I have not drawn, I have never really seen, and that when I start drawing an ordinary thing, I realize how extraordinary it is, sheer miracle.’ — Frederick Franck TheZenofSeeing,1973

CONTRARY TO P MANUAL SKILL IS FAC

POPULAR OPINION, S NOT A PRIMARY CTOR IN DRAWING.

IF YOUR READABLE, OR I LEGIBLY, Y DEXTERITY

HANDWRITING IS IF YOU CAN PRINT YOU HAVE AMPLE Y TO DRAW WELL.

‘If a certain kind of activity, such as painting, becomes the habitual mode of expression, it may follow

DRAWING ATTENTION TO STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS

that taking up the painting materials and beginning work with them will act suggestively and so presently evoke a flight into the higher state.’

— Robert Henri The Art Spirit, 1923

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The slightly altered consciousness state of feeling transported, which most artists experience while drawing, painting, sculpting, or doing any kind of art work, is a state probably not altogether unfamiliar to you. You may have observed in yourself slight shifts in your state of consciousness while engaged in much more ordinary activities than artwork.

For example, most people are aware that they occasionally slip from ordinary waking consciousness into the slightly altered state of daydreaming. As another example, people often say that reading takes them ‘out of themselves.’ And other kinds of activities which apparently produce a shift in consciousness state are meditation, jogging, needlework, typing, listening to music, and, of course, drawing itself.

Also, I believe that driving on the freeway probably induces a slightly different subjective state that is similar to the drawing state. After all, in freeway driving we deal with visual images, keeping track of relational, spatial information, sensing complex components of the overall traffic configuration. Many people find that they do a lot of creative thinking while driving, often losing track of time and experiencing a pleasurable sense of freedom from anxiety. These mental operations may activate the same parts of the brain used in drawing. Of course, if driving conditions are difficult, if we are late or if someone sharing the ride talks with us, the shift to the alternative state doesn't occur.

The key to learning to draw, therefore, is to set up conditions that cause you to make a mental shift to a different mode of infor-

mation processing—the slightly altered state of consciousness— that enables you to see well. In this drawing mode, you will be able to draw your perceptions even though you may never have studied drawing. Once the drawing mode is familiar to you, you will be able to consciously control the mental shift.

DRAWING ON YOUR CREATIVE SELF I see you as an individual with creative potential for expressing yourself through drawing. My aim is to provide the means for releasing that potential, for gaining access at a conscious level to your inventive, intuitive, imaginative powers that may have been largely untapped by our verbal, technological culture and educational system. I am going to teach you how to draw, but drawing is only the means, not the end. Drawing will tap the special abilities that are right for drawing. By learning to draw you will learn to see differently and, as the artist Rodin lyrically states, to become a confidant of the natural world, to awaken your eye to the lovely language of forms, to express yourself in that language.

In drawing, you will delve deeply into a part of your mind too often obscured by endless details of daily life. From this experience you will develop your ability to perceive things freshly in their totality, to see underlying patterns and possibilities for new combinations. Creative solutions to problems, whether personal or professional, will be accessible through new modes of thinking and new ways of using the power of your whole brain.

Drawing, pleasurable and rewarding though it is, is but a key to open the door to other goals. My hope is that Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain will help you expand your powers as an

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My students often report that learning to draw makes them feel more creative. Obviously, many roads lead to creative endeavor: Drawing is only one route. Howard Gardner, Harvard professor of psychology and education, refers to this linkage:‘By a curious twist, the words art and creativity have become closely linked in our society.’

From Gardner's book Creating Minds,1993.

Samuel Goldwyn once said: ‘Don't pay any attention to the critics. Don't even ignore them.’

Quoted in Being Digital by Nicolas Negroponte, 1995.

individual through increased awareness of your own mind and its workings. The multiple effects of the exercises in this book are intended to enhance your confidence in decision making and problem solving. The potential force of the creative, imaginative human brain seems almost limitless. Drawing may help you come to know this power and make it known to others. Through drawing, you are made visible. The German artist Albrecht Dürer said, ‘From this, the treasure secretly gathered in your heart will become evident through your creative work.’

Keeping the real goal in mind, let us begin to fashion the key.

MY APPROACH: A PATH TO CREATIVITY

‘To be shaken out ofthe ruts of ordinary perception, to be shown for a few timeless hours the outer and the inner world, not as they appear to an animal obsessed with words and notions, but as they are apprehended, directly and unconditionally, by Mind at Large—this is an experience of inestimable value to everyone.’— Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception, 1954

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The exercises and instructions in this book have been designed specifically for people who cannot draw at all, who may feel that they have little or no talent for drawing, and who may feel doubtful that they could ever learn to draw—but who think they might like to learn. The approach of this book is different from other drawing instruction books in that the exercises are aimed at opening access to skills you already have but that are simply waiting to be released.

Creative persons from fields other than art who want to get their working skills under better control and learn to overcome blocks to creativity will benefit from working with the techniques presented here. Teachers and parents will find the theory and exercises useful in helping children to develop their creative abilities.

REALISM AS A MEANS TO AN END Why faces?

A number of the exercises and instructional sequences in this book are designed to enable you to draw recognizable portraits.

Let me explain why I think portrait drawing is useful as a subject for beginners in art. Broadly speaking, except for the degree of complexity, all drawing is the same. One drawing task is no harder than any other. The same skills and ways of seeing are involved in drawing still-life setups, landscapes, the figure, random objects, even imaginary subjects, and portrait drawing. It's all the same thing: You see what's out there (imaginary subjects are ‘seen’ in the mind's eye) and you draw what you see.

Why, then, have I selected portrait drawing for some of the exercises? For three reasons. First, beginning students of drawing often think that drawing human faces is the hardest of all kinds of drawing. Thus, when students see that they can draw portraits, they feel confident and their confidence enhances progress. A second, more important, reason is that the right hemisphere of the human brain is specialized for recognition of faces.

Since the right brain is the one we will be trying to gain access to, it makes sense to choose a subject that the right brain is used to working with. And third, faces are fascinating! Once you have drawn a person, you will really have seen that individual's face.

As one of my students said, ‘I don't think I ever actually looked at anyone's face before I started drawing. Now, the oddest thing is that everyone looks beautiful to me.’

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MANY ARTI MENTIONED PUTS THEM IN ALTERED STAT

ISTS HAVE OFTEN D THAT DRAWING NTO A SOMEWHAT TE OF AWARENESS.

IN THAT DIFFER STATE, A FEELING TRANS WITH THE WORK RELATIONS ORDINARIL

RENT SUBJECTIVE ARTISTS SPEAK OF SPORTED, ‘AT ONE K,’ ABLE TO GRASP SHIPS THAT THEY LY CANNOT GRASP.

SUMMING UP ‘When the artist is alive in any person, whatever his kind of work may be, he becomes an inventive, searching, daring, self-expressive creature. He becomes interesting to other people. He disturbs, upsets, enlightens, and opens ways for a better understanding.

Where those who are not artists are trying to close the book, he opens it and shows there are still more pages possible.’

— Robert Henri The Art Spirit, 1923

I have described to you the basic premise of this book—that drawing is a teachable, learnable skill that can provide a twofold advantage. By gaining access to the part of your mind that works in a style conducive to creative, intuitive thought, you will learn a fundamental skill of the visual arts: how to put down on paper what you see in front of your eyes. Second, through learning to draw by the method presented in this book, you will enhance your ability to think more creatively in other areas of your life.

How far you go with these skills after you complete the course will depend on other traits such as energy and curiosity. But first things first! The potential is there. It's sometimes necessary to remind ourselves that Shakespeare at some point learned to write a line of prose, Beethoven learned the musical scales, and as you see in the margin quotation, Vincent Van Gogh learned how to draw.

Artists are known by their unique line qualities, and experts in drawing often base their authentication of drawings on these known line qualities. Styles of line have actually been put into named categories. There are quite a few: the "bold line;" the "broken line" (sometimes called "the line that repeats itself"); the "pure line"— thin and precise, sometimes called "the Ingres line" after the 19th century French artist Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres; the "lost-andfound line," which starts out dark, fades away, then becomes dark again.

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‘... at the time when you spoke of my becoming a painter, I thought it very impractical and would not hear of it.

What made me stop doubting was reading a clear book on perspective, Cassange's Guide to the ABC of Drawing: and a week later I drew the interior of a kitchen with stove, chair, table and window—in their places and on their legs—whereas before it had seemed to me that getting depth and the right perspective into a drawing was witchcraft or pure chance.’

— Vincent Van Gogh, in a letter to his brother, Theo, who had suggested that Vincent become a painter.

Letter 184, p. 331.

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SOHINI MUKHERJEE 2020