10. Rose Montgomery-Whicher - Engage

For a large print version please contact the engage office:
info@engage.org
This PDF is an extract from engage publication:
• engage review
Promoting greater understanding and enjoyment of the visual arts
• Uses of Drawing
• Issue 10 – Autumn 2001
• 70 pages
• ISSN 1365-9383
The original publication is available from engage as below, subject to stocks.
This text is copyright, and is made available for personal/educational use
only, and may not be used commercially or published in any way, in print or
electronically, without the express permission of the copyright holders
engage. engage reiterates its gratitude to the authors and editors concerned,
many of whom work without fee. For more details of engage see end.
Unframing Vision
Drawing in a technological age
Rose Montgomery-Whicher
Research affiliate at the Institute for the Humanities, University of Manitoba, Canada
Word count: 4635 Pages: 11
In the tradition of Western art, skill in drawing has been considered central
to education in art and design. For example, drawing has been called ‘a
foundational studio skill in art’, ‘a fundamental skill of the visual arts’, ‘the
founding discipline of the Western artist’s creative activity’, the ‘core of
secondary and post-secondary art education’ and ‘the backbone of all forms
of visual arts’ 1 . Ingres claimed that ‘drawing includes three quarters and a
half of what constitutes painting. If I had to put a sign over my door, I should
inscribe it School for Drawing, and I am sure that I should turn out painters’
2
. ‘At least since the fourteenth century’ states Victor Chan, ‘drawing has
been considered the basic training in art’ 3 .
However, since the late 20th century, developments in art, design and
technology have invited a reconsideration of the personal and pedagogical
significance of drawing. Is it relevant for today’s students to develop skill in
naturalistic n1 drawing using conventional materials? Since the invention of
photography in the 19th century, new technologies continue to challenge
the monopoly drawing once had in depicting visual experience and
composing visual images. Today, in graphic design, architecture and
animation, ‘drawing’ is often carried out in a computer-aided environment.
The place of drawing in fine art has also changed: already subservient to
painting, printmaking and sculpture, drawing now appears to have been
1

marginalized by new image-making technologies, particularly digital
technologies, and by increasing use of non-traditional media. These
developments call into question the once close relation between art, design,
and drawing. Practitioners, philosophers, art historians, curators and
educators are compelled to ask whether conventional practices of drawing
are threatened by new technologies, and perhaps more importantly, whether
the demise of these practices may imply a loss of particular ways of thinking,
of seeing, and of being in relation to the world and to others.
In this article, I want to examine the strength of drawing as a marginal
practice, suggesting that the enduring significance of drawing (and by
implication its significance in art and design education) is to be found in the
ways in which it differs from dominant practices and media in contemporary
culture. Surrounded by modes of communication and image-making which
are fast, virtual, and relatively easy, drawing seems a remarkably slow,
cumbersome, and difficult way to make a visual image; mastery requires
effort, skill, focused attention and much practice.
In the following, I introduce conceptions of ‘practice’ originated by three
contemporary scholars, Herbert and Stuart Dreyfus, and Albert Borgmann,
whose thinking about the impact of technology has been influenced by the
work of the late Martin Heidegger. These ways of thinking about practice
illuminate questions of skill, work and pleasure, and provide a means of
reconsidering the personal and pedagogical significance of drawing in a
technological age. But first I want to consider ‘practice’ in drawing,
contrasting drawing to practice with a more inclusive notion of drawing
as a practice.
Reflections on practice
In reference to the arts, the word ‘practice’ usually refers to ‘those
repeatable patterns of thought and behavior considered essential to the
development of various artistic skills’ 4 . This conception of practice goes hand
in hand with the saying ‘practice makes perfect’. Practice conceived as to
practice is a means to an end. The end is mastery. Accordingly, a reasonable
degree of competence in drawing, if not mastery, is attainable by those who
are willing to practice.
Peter London 5 reminds art students that the ability to draw like Degas or
Rembrandt is as ‘simple’ as practicing for ten hours a day, six days a week,
for forty years. The point of course is that devoting that much time to
disciplined drawing practice is not so simple! Yet, the statement is
provocative, for it implies that practice, rather than talent, may be the crucial
factor in determining artistic success. In contrast to the popular belief that
drawing is a mysterious ability accessible to only the talented few for whom
it is relatively effortless, an emphasis on practice conceives of drawing as a
teachable skill, making drawing accessible to all, if they are willing to work
at it. Numerous artists and art educators support this view of practice. David
Hockney, for example, claims ‘that anybody can learn to draw quite well just
as anybody can be taught to write’ 6 . Betty Edwards’ and Kimon Nicolaides’
approaches to teaching drawing are based on this belief, and both advocate the
practice of drawing exercises which enable students to develop skills of ‘seeing’ 7,8 .
2

While an understanding of practice as to practice serves as a necessary
reminder of the work involved in learning to draw, it does not explain other
meaningful dimensions of practitioners’ experience. The word ‘practice’ is
also used to refer to a practice, a life activity, which in its fullest sense is a
way of living, a way of doing and being which one continues to learn over
the course of a lifetime. As a life activity, practice also implies work, yet in a
different sense, evident in Picasso’s description of his own youthful drawing
practice.
‘For being a bad student I was banished to the ‘calaboose’ - a bare cell with
whitewashed walls and a bench to sit on. I liked it there, because I took
along a sketch pad and drew incessantly. I think I provoked situations so that
professors would punish me. I was isolated and no one bothered me
drawing, drawing, drawing. I could have stayed there forever drawing
without a stop. True, all my life I’ve been in the habit of drawing, but in that
cell it was a special pleasure difficult to explain. It’s not that I wanted to
excel, rather to work - that’s what one must always do’ 9 .
Here Picasso suggests that the wish ‘to work’ constitutes a different
orientation to drawing practice than working to excel, to develop skills.
What makes this account all the more interesting is that by the time he was
a teenager, banished to the ‘calaboose’ Picasso had already mastered the
skills of naturalistic drawing. Still, he took every opportunity to work at
drawing, for ‘that’s what one must always do’. No matter how accomplished
his youthful work appeared to be by conventional standards, he knew that
the expressive potential of his drawing would continue to develop if he
worked at it. Picasso was among the three artists whose childhood drawings
were studied by David Pariser who speculates that the ‘sureness’ with which
Picasso was able to draw as an adult ‘is in part the end result of tireless
practice’ 10 . Rather than working with an end in view, this attitude to
drawing conceives of ‘work’ as ongoing, open-ended, and unending.
There is another reason why Picasso was ‘in the habit of drawing’
throughout his life: the work of drawing is a ‘special pleasure difficult to
explain.’ What was the pleasure that Picasso felt? We can imagine that for
the teenage Picasso, the experience of drawing, alone, in the bare, whitewashed
room, accentuated the quiet attentiveness of drawing, the delight of
watching the image take shape on the paper.
It is not only accomplished artists who speak of the experience of drawing as
pleasurable, fulfilling and necessary for its own sake. A young man who
owns a hairdressing business at which he works full time, devotes as much
time as possible to drawing and painting. This, he said, in a serious tone, is
something he ‘needs’ to do.
‘I need to have that experience! Exactly what it does for me I don’t know. It’s
the activity as much as the result. And when I do, it’s not fun, it’s not
relaxing. It doesn’t feel like a catharsis. It’s not particularly a relief. Of course
there’s a sense of accomplishment if the drawing or painting goes well. But
for me, the actual process is at least as important as the finished work. It’s
difficult to describe. It’s just it has to be done.’
3

A retired professional who has been drawing and painting as a ‘hobby’ for
about forty years, says ‘I have an attitude about this whole thing, that the
end results are incidental. If someone likes them, well, that’s fine. But the
real result is with you: you’ve done it. To me, the important thing is to have
had the experience. And this, I suppose is the reason to do it’. Her words
recall those of Nicolaides: ‘The effort you make is not for one particular
drawing, but for the experience you are having and that will be true even
when you are eighty years old’ 11 .
What Nicolaides, the hobbyist and the hairdresser share with accomplished
artists such as Picasso is an orientation to drawing that conceives of practice
as a life-long activity. This more inclusive conception of practice permits them
to acknowledge a rich layer of lived meaning which lies below the surface of
instrumental orientations to drawing (practice in the service of mastery or
preparation for other works). While each of these people engages in
drawing as a means to an end, such as developing their drawing skills, or
planning the composition of a painting, they think of each act of drawing as
part of a life-long practice, so that, in addition to mastering and maintaining
skills and producing works of art, each experience is meaningful in itself. Or,
more accurately, in addition to their enjoyment of the experience of
drawing, these artists and hobbyists develop skills and produce works of art.
Thus drawing as a practice is a way of thinking about drawing which
seems to be more inclusive than thinking of drawing practice primarily to
practice skills or to do preparatory work for the production of works of art.
For those who engage in drawing as a practice, the means and ends of
drawing merge in the experience of ongoing work.
Drawing as a marginal practice
Herbert and Stuart Dreyfus have coined the term ‘marginal and nonrationalized
practices’ to describe human activities which, although they
cannot be rationalized as contributing to the ends of ‘human efficiency,
productivity, health and welfare’ 12 are nevertheless vitally important human
practices. ‘Marginal and non-rationalized practices’ are aspects of being
human, things which people do spontaneously, rather than on principle.
These include: going for walks, playing with children, mentoring young
people, caring for the sick, for plants and for animals. Some of these
practices have become professional activities, such as teaching or nursing. In
virtue of being professionalized, some non-rationalized practices seem to be
rationalized: one can take courses, earn degrees, and belong to professional
societies. Nevertheless, what is at the heart of the professions of teaching or
nursing is a non-rationalized impulse to mentor young people or to care for
the sick. Similarly, while drawing is ‘rationalized’ in courses, societies, and the
curricula of secondary and post-secondary education, the impulse to draw
resists rationalization, and cannot be controlled, managed, or technologized.
Thus, drawing from observation is another practice that could be described
as a ‘marginal and non-rationalized practice’. To say that drawing from
observation is a ‘marginal’ practice is not to say that it is ‘trivial and
insignificant’ 13 , but that its significance lies in a different domain from
activities directed towards productivity and efficiency. Drawing is humble,
modest, marginal. Consider the following instances:
4

The snow has finally melted in this Canadian city, and for the first time in
months it is warm and sunny. Children are making chalk drawings and
hopscotches on the sidewalks, colourful counterparts to the crocuses that
have just sprung up in the lawns.
While going for a walk in the welcome coolness of the early morning, a
visitor to south India discovers intricate, geometric mandalas, drawn in
chalk in front of the doorways of some homes and shops.
A boy is drawing with his finger on the bathroom mirror. It’s an
opportunity he just can’t resist: no matter what else is happening, if there
is a steamy mirror, he just has to draw on it.
Two guests are seated side by side at a dinner party in Istanbul; although
neither one speaks a word of the other’s language, they have a lively
conversation through a series of drawings on their table napkins n2 .
A doctor draws a diagram on a scrap of paper to explain to her patient
what is happening inside his body.
A university student spends the afternoon standing, with a sketchbook
balanced on one arm, copying Old Master drawings in an exhibition.
A woman carries a sketch pad on a hike through the mountains. From
time to time, she pauses to draw the landscape, making a series of rapid
sketches to explore possible compositions for a painting. In the same
region, a man sits quietly, making a careful line drawing of a wildflower
for an illustration in a botany book.
The instances of drawing described above show how, in the lives of many
artists, hobbyists, students and children, drawing continues to be a vitally
important activity. In spite of changing trends in the art world, and in spite
of new technologies for image making, people continue to take up and
engage in the practice of drawing, and many artists return to it. Drawing has
an extraordinary resiliency.
Drawing as a focal practice
In addition to the Dreyfuses’ conception of marginal and non-rationalized
practices, there is another, related way of theorizing about life practices.
Borgmann 14 has created the term ‘focal practices’ to identify activities which,
in Herbert Dreyfus’ words, require ‘effort’ and ‘focus’ 15 . The requirement for
effort, focused attention and skill make focal practices a narrower category
of practices than those described by the Dreyfuses; focal practices could be
thought of as belonging to the larger family of marginal and nonrationalized
practices n3 . All forms of drawing could be considered
as marginal and non-rationalized practices, and more specialized, skilled
forms of drawing could be considered as focal practices. For example, while
life drawing could be called a focal practice, doodling, scribbling and some
of the examples cited above - children drawing on the pavement or on
steamy mirrors, a doctor making an explanatory drawing - are marginal and
5

non-rationalized practices. In this way, marginal and non-rationalized
practices are primordial human activities, while focal practices are the skilled,
cultured forms of some of these activities. Borgmann has developed the
notion of focal practices from two sources: the etymology, meanings, and
connotations of the word focus, and Heidegger’s essay on the significance of
‘the thing’ 16 . The word focus can be traced back to Latin where it means
‘hearth’. Borgmann shows how the connotations of ‘hearth’ contribute to
our contemporary understanding of focus. Traditionally, the hearth was ‘a
place that gathered the work and leisure of a family and gave the house a
center’ 17 . Thus, as a ‘thing’ in Heidegger’s sense, the hearth gathered the
elements and its users into a physical and social engagement with it, in its
particular context, and rewarded them spiritually and physically. In current
usage, the word hearth is often metaphorical, referring to the centre of the
home and family life, while we use the word focus (as a noun) to mean a
centre of activity or attention, or (as a verb) to settle on one thing, to
concentrate. In addition to these meanings, focus has a modern optical
meaning as the point at which rays converge and from which they diverge in
a regular manner. This combines with the older meanings of focus to suggest
that a focus is a thing which gathers and centres people and activities, while
illuminating its surroundings 18 .
Even in the midst of contemporary technological culture, there are many
focal things to be found. In addition to Heidegger’s ‘inconspicuously
compliant’ things such as a wine jug, a footbridge, a bench 19 , Borgmann lists
the wilderness, the table, and by implication, the garden 20 . These focal
things however, require focal practices to sustain them: hiking, gardening,
and the making of daily and festive meals. To Borgmann’s list of focal things,
I would add a well-used sketchbook, suggesting that skilled drawing,
particularly when it is undertaken as a life-long practice, is a focal practice.
In drawing, as in other focal practices, the inseparability of means and ends
give rise to meaningful engagement in pleasurable work. People who live
with drawing as a life-long practice describe their experience of drawing as
‘work’ and ‘struggle.’ To describe drawing as work and pleasure, almost in
the same breath, is to describe a particular quality of attention which is
characteristic of ‘focal practices’ in which ‘effort and joy are one; the split
between means and ends, labor and leisure is healed’ 21 . This quality of
attention dwells at the very heart of drawing.
Focal practices allow for the experience of ‘focal reality,’ a way of naming
‘the encounters each of us has with things that of themselves have engaged
mind and body and have centered our lives’ 22 . These kinds of human
experiences seem to be threatened by the way in which technology gives
people easy, quick results - a ready-made meal, a low maintenance garden
with an automated sprinkler system - without requiring an effort, without
focusing attention. And yet, it is against the background of fast-paced
contemporary technological culture that the significance of focal practices
stands out. For example, the focal significance of long distance running out
of doors is highlighted by its contrast to the experience of keeping fit on
machines in a sweaty, windowless gym. Similarly, the focal significance of
patiently drawing landscapes and cityscapes while travelling is readily
apparent when it is contrasted with the fast and inattentive snapping of a
6

disposable camera. Contemporary culture actually serves to highlight what
Borgmann would call the ‘hidden splendor’ of drawing 23 .
Enframing
Heidegger’s essay on technology 24 , originally published in 1954, offers
insights into the ways of thinking which surround rapid technological
development that are still relevant today. He points out that technology
itself is not the problem. Rather, what gives cause for concern is the ‘essence
of modern technology’ which in fact is ‘nothing technological’ but
‘enframing’, a way of regarding everything instrumentally, as being ever
available, convertible and controllable raw materials for efficient and
productive use 25 . Today, raw materials include electronically transmitted text
and digital images, and much of our experience is literally ‘framed’ by the
window of a computer or television screen. Heidegger cautions us against
allowing ourselves to be unthinkingly hurried along by a technological
rationality in which we are increasingly and unthinkingly predisposed to
assume that what is faster, more productive, more expedient, more cost
efficient is necessarily better. The danger, as Heidegger sees it, is that this
increasingly pervasive attitude may consume us and obscure other modes of
revealing the truth of things. He suggests that what will save us from being
taken over by ‘enframing’ is to be found in the ‘realm of art’ which is akin
to, but different from modern technology. The kinship between technology
and art lies in their common ancestry in the Greek word techne. In ancient
Greece, techne referred to both art and craft; art bore ‘the modest name of
techne’; as a way of revealing truth by bringing forth and making present,
techne belonged in the realm of poesis, poetic revealing 26 . For the ancient
Greeks, techne was associated with an understanding of truth as revelation,
rather than a notion of truth as ‘correctness of representation’ 27 . A drawing
which is only a technically accurate representation tends to be dull;
it reveals little about the subject or the maker. Writing in 1846, Baudelaire
sounds contemporary when he describes an ‘exact’ style of drawing as
‘stupid’ and ‘inaccurate by its slavish copying’ 28 . By contrast, an intelligent
drawing has the potential to reveal the truth of embodied vision and
experience. Consider for example, Matisse’s line drawings of the human
figure. Unlike an ‘exact’ representation of a figure in an academic drawing,
these depictions of the human figure reveal much about Matisse, his
relationship to the model and embodied experience.
Un-framing vision
Drawing, according to Edwards, allows for ‘a different, more direct kind of
seeing’ in which we do not just see what we are looking for, and ‘see more
fully and perhaps more realistically’ 29 . While drawing, the focus of our
attention seems to become wider. As we settle down and make the effort to
draw, we begin to see all kinds of visual detail, to see what is in our
peripheral vision. Our vision becomes ‘unframed’: we do not see the subject
as if through a camera’s lens, cut off from its surroundings, nor is our seeing
driven towards productive ends. Seeing ‘more fully’, the world becomes
enlarged: we see more vividly and there is more to see n4 . Frederick Franck
describes some of the ordinary sights near his New York State home that
become visible through drawing: ‘the convoluted network of veins in an oak
leaf, the voluptuous curves of a green pepper, the subtle variations in the
7

forms of five little pears on your table, a bird gathering sprigs of grass to
build its nest, a homeless person across the street, a little girl playing
hopscotch by herself, two old men ambling down a Lower East Side street in
Talmudic discourse’ 30 . Even when we are not drawing, we may continue to
see as if we are drawing. Franck writes, ‘driving my car, or stopping at a
traffic light or a bus stop, in a park, my eye continues to register a face, a
body bending, a pattern of trees swaying in the breeze’ 31 .
Learning to draw requires an immense effort, over a long period of time, to
develop a skill of the body as well as of the mind. In making this effort, we
are compelled to slow down, to focus attention while keeping our peripheral
vision open. With practice, our vision is no longer ‘framed’ by the small
rectangle of a camera’s viewfinder, by the window of a computer screen, or
perhaps most importantly, by a technological rationality in which we see
things only for their usefulness, and we are able to see what unexpected
beauty there is in age, in ruin, in the overlooked and the ordinary. In this
way, drawing fosters an attitude of openness and restores things and persons
to their otherness; as Berger suggests, ‘drawing is a constant question, is a
clumsiness, which is a form of hospitality towards what is being drawn’ 32 .
So is it relevant for today’s students to develop skill in naturalistic drawing
using conventional materials? If our thinking is ‘enframed’ by a technological
rationality, then the slowness, the clumsy, costly, messy materiality of
drawing may compel us to respond that developing skill in naturalistic
drawing, with conventional materials, need not be a priority for today’s
students, whether they are children, adult hobbyists, or young adults who
are aspiring to become artists and designers. If, on the other hand, our
thinking has not fallen prey to a technological rationality, we can respond to
the question of the contemporary pedagogical relevance of drawing
with a ‘yes’.
In the above I have tried to sketch the outlines of an argument to show how
the personal and pedagogical significance of drawing dwells in its practice.
When drawing is considered as a marginal and non-rationalized practice, its
significance as a human activity becomes apparent. As a focal practice,
drawing finds its significance not only in the realms of art and design, and
art and design education, but in the broader arena of life practices which
gather and illuminate our lives through focused attention, effort and skill. In
the context of contemporary culture, drawing is a ‘marginal’ practice which
endures because it differs from dominant practices and media, a practice
which, I believe, still deserves a central place in art and design education.
References
1
Quotes in order of appearance:
Anderson, T. (1992), ‘Drawing upon the eye, the brain and the heart’ Art
Education, 45 (5), p. 45.
Edwards, B. (1999), The new drawing on the right side of the brain, (revised
and expanded edition), New York: Tarcher/Putnam, p. 9.
Dinham, J. (1989), ‘Drawing: What is it and why has it traditionally held a
special place in the art programme?’ Journal of Art and Design Education,
8(3), p. 324.
Hurwitz, A. and Mosely, Q. (1986), ‘Foundation programs: the basics of art
8

education’ School Arts.
85 (9), p. 35.
Rockman, D. (2000), The art of teaching art: a guide to teaching and learning
the foundations of drawing-based art, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 6.
2
Ingres, in Chan, V. (1995), Rubens to Picasso: Four centuries of master
drawings, Edmonton, AB: Department of Art and Design, University of
Alberta in collaboration with the University of Alberta Press, p. 10.
3
Ibid., p. 10.
4
Howard, V. (1982), Artistry: The work of artists, Indianapolis: Hackett, p.
157.
5
London, P. (1989), No more second hand art:
Awakening the artist within, Boston: Shambala, p. 16.
6
Hockney, in Camp, J. (1981), Draw: How to master the art (foreword by D.
Hockney), London: Dorling Kindersley, p. 6.
7
Edwards, B. (1999), op. cit.
8
Nicolaides, K. (1941), The natural way to draw, Boston: Houghton Mufflin.
9
Picasso, in Chan, V. (1995), op. cit., p. 10.
10
Pariser, D. (1985). ‘The juvenalia of Klee, Toulouse-Lautrec and Picasso: A
report on the initial stages of research into the development of exceptional
graphic artistry’, in B. Wilson and H. Hoffa (eds.), The history of art education
(pp. 192-202). State College, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University, p.
199.
11
Nicolaides, K. (1941), op. cit., p. 2.
12
Herbert and Stuart Dreyfus in Flyvbjerg, B. (1991), ‘Sustaining nonrationalized
practices: body-mind, power and situational ethics: an interview
with Herbert and Stuart Dreyfus’, Praxis International, 11 (1), p. 98.
13
Herbert Dreyfus, ibid., p. 98.
14
Borgmann, A. (1984), Technology and the character
of contemporary life: a philosophical inquiry. University of Chicago Press and
Borgmann, A. (1992), Crossing
the postmodern divide. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
15
Herbert Dreyfus, in Flyvbjerg, B. (1991), op. cit., p. 99.
16
Heidegger, M. (1971). ‘The thing’ (A. Hofstadter,
trans.), in M. Heidegger, Poetry, language, thought
pp. 162-185. New York: Harper & Row, (original work published 1950.
17
Borgmann, A. (1984), op. cit., pp. 41-42.
18
Borgmann, A. (1984), op. cit., p. 197; Borgmann, A. (1992), op. cit., p. 96.
19
Heidegger, M. (1971), op. cit., p. 182.
20
Borgmann, A. (1984), op. cit., p. 197.
21
Borgmann, A. (1984), op. cit., p. 202.
22
Borgmann, A. (1992), op. cit., p. 119.
23
Borgmann, A. (1984), op. cit., p. 196.
24
Heidegger, M. (1977), ‘The question concerning technology’ (W. Lovitt,
trans.), in D. Krell (ed.), Martin Heidegger: Basic writings, San Francisco:
Harper, pp. 287-317, (original work published 1954).
25
Heidegger, M. (1977), op. cit., p. 302.
26
Heidegger, M. (1977), op. cit., pp. 294, 316.
27
Heidegger, M. (1977), op. cit., pp. 294, 295.
28
Baudelaire, in Gayford, M. and Wright, K. (eds.) (1999), The Penguin book
of art writing, London: Penguin Press, p. 411.
9

29
Edwards, B. (1999), op. cit., p. xxv.
30
Franck, F. (1993), Zen seeing, Zen drawing, New York: Bantam, pp. xii, 19,
116.
31
Franck, F. (1993), op. cit., p. 17.
32
Berger, in Gayford, M. and Wright, K. (eds.) (1999), op. cit., p. 421.
Notes
n1
I have chosen to use the term ‘naturalistic’ drawing rather than
‘representational’ or ‘realistic’ drawing; not only because this word carries
less philosophical baggage, but because it seems to suggest a more inclusive
range of observational drawings, from loose sketches to highly finished
studies, drawings which may not be ‘correct’ or objectively ‘true’ but which,
nevertheless, are true to some aspect of the lived experience of seeing.
n2
This is my summary of Berger's experience that he describes in : Berger, J.
(2000) 'To take paper, to draw: A world through lines, in D. Chasman and E.
Chiang (Eds), Drawing us in: how we experience visual art, pp. 118-
124,Boston: Beacon Press, p. 119.
n3
Herbert Dreyfus describes focal practices as a ‘sub-class of marginal
practices’ (in Flyvbjerg, 1991, p. 99).
n4
My thanks to Cynthia Taylor, Professor of Art Education at the Nova Scotia
College of Art and Design, for pointing out to me in November 1996
(in the midst of a spectacular landscape in central Spain), that a significant
difference between using a camera and drawing is in the way in which
looking through a camera frames vision whereas drawing allows for
peripheral vision, a broader view, a more open way of seeing.
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Rose Montgomery-Whicher is currently a research affiliate at the Institute for
the Humanities, at the University of Manitoba, Canada. Following the
completion of her Ph.D. in 1997, she was a lecturer in art and design
education at the Institute of Education, University of London, England. Her
research and publications focus on drawing and the use of
phenomenological and interpretive methodologies in art education research.
montgome@cc.UManitoba.CA
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
engage is a registered not-for-profit educational association which promotes
access to and understanding of the visual arts through gallery education and
cultural mediation nationally and internationally.
engage has a membership of over 1000 worldwide, including galleries, arts
centres, museums, artists studios, artists, curators, teachers, students as well
as gallery education and cultural mediation staff and freelancers. engage
works in three key areas: action-research (including the Collect & Share
lifelong learning network in Europe – see www.collectandshare.eu.com),
professional development, advocacy (see www.engage.org).
engage is building an international online case study database, and a resource
and library of relevant reports, evaluations, and research. engage welcomes
offers of material to make available to the sector through these channels.
10

To enquire about copyright, to subscribe to the engage journal or join
engage, or to offer material for the database or website, please email
info@engage.org
engage is grateful to the Arts Councils of England, Scotland and Wales, to
the Depts of Culture and Education in England, to the British Council and the
European Commission, and to the Esmee Fairbairn and Baring Foundations
for ongoing support.
11