rebecca coleman visual studies notebook

This is a drawing of a fly. It's more muted than the last two drawings that I've done. I've been in a more quiet mood over the past week. Lots of school work and projects to do and the weather became cool again recently. A couple of weeks ago we talked about how there are moth characters in two Shakespeare plays: Love's Labor's Lost, and A Midsummer Night's Dream. I haven't had time to investigate these but I did find an essay by Virginia Woolf called "The Death of The Moth": http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks12/1203811h.html#ch-02. The essay is much darker (more morbid) than how I feel about the series that I've been making but I still thought it was a beautiful essay. Here is one passage from the last paragraph: It was useless to try to do anything. One could only watch the extraordinary efforts made by those tiny legs against an oncoming doom which could, had it chosen, have submerged an entire city, not merely a city, but masses of huma...

I was trying through this drawing to depict that occasional feeling of indignation when you feel like you're too delicate or sensitive for the world (in a kind of dramatic, over the top way). But there is a lot that is going on that is shocking and strange (politically and culturally), and it can be a lot to grapple with sometimes if you try to confront it head on. After working on this drawing I watched the new film about Joan Didion over the weekend called The Center Will Not Hold, and felt like it was related in some ways to my drawing. I have read many of Didion's books and essays spanning her career and even had the chance to hear her speak once in person in Los Angeles. The film takes you through what she was doing in life in parallel with her writing and is called The Center Will Not Hold because early on she reaches a point where she has stopped writing because she does not know how to make sense of how she fits into the world. Didion's essay "Slouching ...

My drawing this week is of a moth close to flames. I guess I am still thinking about the fires in northern California caused by the Diablo winds, and now about the possibility of more fires in southern California (where my family lives), from the high temperatures and Santa Ana winds.  Related to one of the words for this week, these drawings are a way to regain, or reclaim, my time each week for myself.

My drawing this week is of a moth in smokey air. What a strange week we had, with all of the fires north of here, and the red flag warning for the East Bay. Today is the first day that I've been able to go for a run outdoors and it was so wonderful to be able to do that and to breathe fresh air. Tony, last week you recommended that I read the poem Pied Beauty. I found it online and really like it. "Pied," "dappled," "freckled" -- these are all qualities related to color and texture that I'm going for in my drawings right now. Pied Beauty Gerard Manley Hopkins ,  1844  -  1889 Glory be to God for dappled things— For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow; For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim; Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings; Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough; And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim. All things counter, original, spare, strange; Whate...

My drawing this week is of moths again, but I would mainly like to talk about visual form here rather than the subject (the only thing I will say about the subject for now is that it is probably related to the subaltern?). Last week you (Tony) mentioned Christopher Alexander's idea about "field of centers," which you described as how the implied center (center of interest) gives meaning to the rest of the work. I went to the College of Environmental Design Library to check out his book The Nature of Order (1988). The properties of visual form that Christopher Alexander lays out related to the ways that centers can intensify each other is interesting to me. In addition to drawing on examples from fine art, he also uses buildings, floor plans, and city plans to explain what he means by the properties that work together to create compelling visual form. In addition to the field of centers concept, I also especially liked reading about "Roughness" and "...

Similar to last week, I focused on developing the background of the drawing. But this time I wanted the subject to be more integrated into the background. I've still been thinking about the iconography in Morris Graves's work and chose to draw a moth as subject this time.  I looked up  Po Chu-ï and found another poem that I like. Here it is:  Lament for Peony Flowers I grieve for the red peony flowers by the steps. By this evening two branches have withered. Tomorrow morning wind will blow away the rest. At night I keep sad watch, hold flame over the dying red. Tony Barnstone and Chou Ping