Drawing Together

7
This project is different. It makes the partners in artistic dialogue
equal because each is both creator and recreator, a drawer and an
interpreter of drawing.
And it is the untrained, nonprofessional artist who starts, who
creates a space for sense and who sets its tone. The invitation made
to a professional artist, to respond to something made by another,
is already a subversion of the normal relationship between artist
and public.
But then the artist’s response requires its own answer, like a letter
from a friend. It’s not an email or text that appears – ping! – and gets
an instant message back. This drawing is on paper and like a letter it
must be physically carried from one hand to another.
That takes time and it gives time – time to reflect, to wonder,
to imagine. Time to get to know one’s correspondent through the
images they offer. Time to think through what to share and how
to share it.
But first you must decide what’s being said and, since this is a
drawing not a letter, that’s open to question. Curiously, though, the
ambiguity is not threatening: it’s liberating. No honest, open response
to a drawing is ‘wrong’: there can be no misunderstanding. So what
goes back, after careful study of each image, is a truthful reply. And
that in turn invites a reply…
The exchange of drawings, like all gifts, creates obligations. You
must give something in return, not just a picture but, in it, something
of yourself. You must give a little trust, a little truth. And so the
threads of relationship are plaited and strengthened until, like
climbers, we’re ready to trust our weight to them.
There are always people on the margins of society. The strong take
their places in the sun, uncaring or unconscious of where falls their
shade. Those who can speak, and are listened to, easily take that gift
for granted. They may believe that others, if they’re noticed at all, are
silent from weakness or choice. Things are not so simple.