When one is in the presence of a bully, the air leaves the room. One becomes suffocated with the poison of their cynicism. The powerlessness one experiences, fuels a bully. The bully (bully-well) feels their own power when the others in the room go limp in passive agreement. A circle […]
Avron Soyer on his Teaching
Interview with a Student 2000 -Avron Soyer Avron: I am aware of the danger of identifying the potentialities of art with any particular approach. I am on the side of open creative dialogue between person and discipline. I want to accept and encourage. Yet I also want to help students move closer to art. Thus […]
Excerpt from Living Art -The Face
2.3 The Face The face is extremely difficult to draw or paint as a unity. It resists connection to the body. It tends to fragment into its features. One problem is language. Face language is extremely analytic. It separates. It doesn’t seem as strange to say, “First I painted his face and then his body” as […]
Living Art I. An Invitation
An Invitation Opening 1.1 Writing is surprisingly different from face-to-face art teaching: no colors, gestures or voices. One must “spell it out”. I write because I love art and because I noticed I am old. 1.2 I teach at The New School and The Educational Alliance. I also teach recovering drug addicts and people who […]
Living Art- II. Teaching Pattern- Reconstructing the Human Figure…
Reconstructing the Human Figure as a Unity, and Sensitivity to Implicit Movement 1.Opening Most of these exercises apply to both painting and drawing. I usually begin with drawing because one can’t learn everything at once. Yet I found that if one waits more than three classes to introduce painting some students implicitly identify the […]
Living Art- III. Art Words- Structural Distinctions
Structural Distinctions 1.Drawing and Painting 1.1. Opening The usual distinction between painting and drawing is presence or absence of color. I accept this as a minimal distinction. Yet the artist needs more. Drawing and painting both create shapes. – Pure drawing outlines. It translates the idea of boundary into black line. – Painting works from […]
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