Quite excited about starting drawing and painting classes again in the new year with my teacher, a man in his 80's who's deeply involved with drawing, and teaching people how to come alive through it. Here's a quote from him:
"We are all exposed! The model is naked, the drawings of the participants [of the class] are examined and the teacher - if that's the right word - has to draw in front of a distinguished audience. This is as it should be, but why do we do it? We m
ay not be able to answer that question but we can circle round it. When we work we define ourselves in relation to each others' work - we are all different. Home Faber, man the maker, was something that distinguished early men and women: we want to make, since we have emerged from a long process of making, which is manifested in our need to make.
We want to know what we are: that naked human over there is our target but we can only approach it through a process of overcoming difficulties in ourselves and through a process of progressive self-knowledge. Perhaps it is more true to say that drawing is a self-justifying activity since as we draw, we perceive things more fully and live more intensely."
