This month I took part in an evening of Drawing as Embodied Self-Trust that was created and run by Haley Craw. It was in a lull between heatwaves and the high ceilings and airy space of The Bank in Eye with a soft breeze through the open windows provided a calming haven. Along with nine other participants we were seated at spacious desk all arranged in an oval that faced inward towards Haley in the centre. Each desk was equipped with a pile of A3 paper and charcoal. The aim was simply to draw with our eyes closed and with music playing. To begin I touched the paper's rough edges, becoming attuned to the feeling of the delicate willow charcoal on the paper's surface. Later we were given crumbly coloured chalks that filled the tiny indentations of the textured sheet. The feeling of marking a surface became fascinating, finding different levels of touch, finding movement to be rhythmic or slow or stop when stopping feels right, beginning when that feels necessary. Over the space of two hours we opened our eyes and got to see how what feels right might look.
Like most kids I grew up drawing with pencils, wax crayons, felt tip pens or grainy paint on poster paper, and part of the joy is the experience of marking the paper with this stationary, learning a little bit of muscle control, choosing colours, the associated smells and sounds and sensations. That pleasing feeling of finding a balance between controlling the materials and the freedom of showing on the paper anything you choose. There is a little reward system there, that is linked in to a bigger reward system of people responding to the result and you responding to your own work. But before other people are involved and before you learn to respond to yourself, there is that time where it is just you and the sensation of the materials: a little relationship from earliest memory, before you could articulate it, and it sticks with you in some way or other. That is what this session with Haley felt like: that earliest connection.
It reminds me of an interview with cartoonist John Porcellino from 2022 where he explains:
I always tried to let my comics be what they wanted to be without too much fuss on my end. I kind of let them go whatever direction they wanted to go, and followed. So as far as development, it was really just continually making comics over time, and letting them develop naturally the way they wanted to develop.
When John speaks about continually making comics over time, it makes sense, if you keeping on making pictures and stories, although you can't request it and although it doesn't come to order, it is likely that patterns will emerge and that the work will take on new and interesting qualities. To make work regularly I want to feel comfortable doing it. So I can do it more. The conditions of the drawing that night at the Bank brought that comfort which is a bit of a breakthrough in my world.