Jul. 21, 2010 - Issue #770: Draw It Yourself
Draw it yourself
Edmonton's artist-run centres—and you—collaborate on Draw
ALL TOGETHER NOW » Draw aims to get you out and scribbling / Supplied
Although Latitude has partnered with other institutions before—include Metro Cinema and FAVA for the hand-made Anime-a-thon and the Art Gallery of Alberta for the cut-and-paste College-a-thon—this year's Draw will not only bring together a wider group of allies but also mark the first time in a very long time indeed that Edmonton's artist-run centres have collaborated on a major event, and should serve as much as a coming-out party for some of the city's most vital institutions as a good time to be had by all. To help put you in the mood for the noon-to-midnight affair, Vue Weekly presents four reasons—one for each participating organization—why you should spend some of your Saturday making art.
It'll be fun
The primary, well, draw of any Draw event is just the simple pleasure of it all. This year Draw will look to amp that up a little bit by spreading itself across three venues, each offering a unique take on the overall theme that's a bit related to their individual mandate.
Things kick off at noon, when both Harcourt and SNAP open their doors for an afternoon of free-form workshops. Harcourt will be offering life-drawing sessions of both the nude and clothed variety, depending on how adventurous you're feeling, and within those will help introduce you to various methods of drawing, from the often-frightening blind sketch to the collaborative pass-around NAME. SNAP, meanwhile, will be running nearly all of its impressive array of machinery, offering a chance to print your own text-based stuff on their letterpress, make an image on their lino box or embossment machines and even run off some prints on the ever-popular screen printing stations.
After 6 pm things head over to Latitude for something a little less formal. DJs from CJSR will be providing music and a bar will provide the libations while Latitude sets up the collage tables and opens up the walls: whether you want to collage with or hang some of your work from earlier in the day—part of the hope is that people will take each creation from one place to another and add to them—or start working on something new entirely is up to you. In amongst all the scissors and glue will also be some celluloid, as FAVA is running a film-scratching workshop, allowing you to do some of your own animation on film strips, which they'll also run through a projector. In short, over the course of the day you can do just about anything fun and art-related, which, as Harcourt House special events coordinator Maegan Mehler explains, is the ultimate goal of Draw.
"Things like this let people know that anyone can make art, and everyone should feel good about it and feel free to make it," she says. "Maybe you don't have a desire to do it full time, or do shows or anything like, but it should be fun and feel good. Have a beer and draw: there doesn't need to be more to it than that."
Support artist-run centres
If you're a regular reader of Vue's pages, you're no doubt used to seeing the names of all these organizations pop up, especially in exhibit reviews. But you might not be aware of how, exactly, their artist-run nature makes them different from some of the other galleries in town, whether commercial or public.
"A lot of people, including people who are involved with the arts, don't know much about artist-run centres," admits Annalise Prodor, Latitude's outreach assistant and the person in charge of the overall organization of Draw. "We wanted to push the fact that we have these programs and spaces beyond commercial galleries."
How do they differ? Most importantly, as the name implies, these organizations are all run by artists, and everyone from the executive directors responsible for their overall vision to the coordinators tracking down volunteers are practicing art in some capacity, which gives them insight that people like curators or commercial galleries don't necessarily share. Their focus is on helping artists grow and expand their practice, not necessarily on finding a buyer or providing historical context.
"They have the experience of the struggle and all of that other stuff that comes along with it," explains Mehler, "They know what it's like to be an artist, they have the artists in mind all the time. Everything they do is to promote the artists and do what we can to help them."
This in turn lets the artists be a little more experimental, to try things that are a little more daring and aren't necessarily going to be red-tagged and shuffled off to someone's wall right away. That, explains SNAP executive director Anna Karolina Szul, is essential for the vitality of any artistic community.
"Without artist-run centres, we'd find that the work created in our community would be stagnant and conservative," she points out. "Everyone would be worried about paying their bills, and not just creating art from whatever vein inspires them. There would be no room for experimental art without organizations like ours—[we have] a way of liberating what artists are willing to do and make."
Try out the artist education programs
Harcourt House, SNAP and FAVA all offer workshops and classes related to their particular expertise, and in most cases the events they're helping to run at Draw are condensed versions of some of the things you can come back and learn in a more in-depth way later. If you're a little bit nervous about plunking down money upfront, or even would just rather try things out in a little less formal setting, Draw is the perfect opportunity to join a few dozen other interested folk and see what each has to offer for free. And, of course, once it hooks you, the staff and volunteers on hand will be happy to let you know how you can sign up for classes—and even, in certain cases, request them to host particular workshops that you'd like to participate in.
"We truly are community organizations, and the community has a voice in what we do," points out Szul. "If there's a workshop or a class you want to see, something you're more interested in, we'd be happy to find a way to work it. That kind of input is possible with organizations like ours."
Take the mystique out of art
There's no getting around it: visual art can sometimes be an intimidating thing. Unless you were particularly interested as a younger person, odds are you didn't get much of an education in it, and the varying styles and practices, from hardcore realism to intense abstraction, can leave some people adrift (a fact which isn't always helped by a small but prominent number of art snobs). It needn't be so imposing, though: after all, it's all just visual representation—as long as you can see, you'll get something out of it.
That point is driven home at Draw, where not only will there be artists on hand to offer some insight into their practice—Harcourt is even opening up some of its artists' studios so you can peak inside and talk to the artists—but you also get to try it out for yourself and gain some insight into the relatively simple processes that add up to something much grander.
"If people go into a gallery thinking they're supposed to be looking at or thinking about things in a certain way, they're not taking it in, they're not giving it a chance," points out Mehler. "This can break down the barrier that art is supposedly something that's not reachable or acceptable for everybody. It lets people know that everybody can be doing it, or appreciating it."
"People think 'gallery' and they don't want to go, they say they're not that into art, but once they get here, I think they see how easy and fun it can be, and want to come back," adds Prodor. "I think it can be scary and intimidating, but that's why these events have to happen." V
Sat, Jul 24 (12 pm –12 am)
Draw
SNAP (10123 - 121 St),
Harcourt House (10215 - 112 St),
Latitude 53 (10248 - 106 St), Free vueweekly.com comments: powered by Disqus
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