Week 2 - Familiar as Completely Unfamiliar


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“Our perennial spiritual and psychological task is to look at things familiar, until they become unfamiliar again.” – G.K. Chesterton
The above quote has much to do this second week here at LAAFA.  There is always a gravitational pull towards allowing oneself to become too familiar with what we’re predisposed to. The challenge I faced on the morning of October the 8th was familiarity. I was going to an establishment where I spent 30 hours the week prior. But I failed to prepare with necessary respect for the unfamiliarity of new lessons and concepts I would need to embrace.  As soon as I realized the mental preparation that was needed to be able to fully engage the familiar as completely un-familiar, I immediately had to metaphorically splash myself with cold water. And since it was a cold morning, the metaphor had some physical realities.


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From my perspective, I could see that this was the challenge for all my fellow students.  The first week was so mentally and physically challenging that a natural retraction into the comfort of rhythmic repetition was tempting; we unmolded pieces of clay are quite a contrast to the refined pillars of strength and passion that the faculty are to us. When we slow, the faculty is ready to give us the strength and ignition we need to engage the new gems of art wisdom that lay ahead.
We all seemed to get through the first week with our preexisting skills and talents. We understood the theories, completed the homework, and understood the logic of the lessons. But whatever we were resting on was wonderfully shattered in Ron Lemen’s figure construction class. Our first introduction to anatomical construction of the abdomen and pectoral attachment while looking at the live model initiated us into a level of drawing that we were likely not adapted to. I personally went through stages of not getting it, getting it, then not getting it again.  As Ron patiently demonstrated again for me, I began to implement sound abdominal flexion in accordance to the models changing poses. I felt as if I learned the steps to the waltz.  As the model moved, the figure on my Strathmore drawing pad began to move as well.


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The instructors at LAAFA believe in the importance of understanding the human anatomy so that our relationship with the art we are trying to create can grow a genuine representative intimacy.  In Ron’s class, I felt I was getting to know my friend “the human figure” on a new level.  Coupled with the applicatory nature of Ron’s class, the human anatomy class with Rey Bustos furthers the specificities of our subject with much more scientific terms.  I continuously am awestruck by the first 15 minutes of Rey’s lectures. Ray stated a monumental fact in regards to the early masters of old. In times of Caravaggio, becoming an artist was like trying to become a doctor. You couldn’t just “be” an artist back then. For example, upon realization that an individual wants to be a doctor, he or she doesn’t enter the surgery room and get right to work. A doctor has to be trained extensively, but also has to be good at the work in order to earn a certificate of practice.  In the same sense, back in the time of the great Italian masters you had to know your craft to even earn the title of “artist”.  Rey believes in just that still to this day.  Rey has given me ownership over my time here at LAAFA. Every time I leave his classroom, I feel as though I have re-discovered why I am here at LAAFA. 


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I think that as I write this, I am beginning to understand that the unfamiliar lies a little deeper than a familiarity of a curriculum schedule as I stated earlier.  We as artists can fall into the danger of becoming too familiar. In art, our familiarity with subject matter or any aspect can sometimes transform it into something that “we just do” rather than something that “we must do”.  What Rey achieved Friday morning in his lecture was he made art completely unfamiliar to me again. I was reminded of its beauty, its complexity, its mystery, and all this demonstrated in the lesson of the pelvic bone. How much more is there for me to discover! How much more lay ahead as I dive deeper into the trunk, the head, and the hands! I learned a very important lesson as I press onward through LAAFA, and that lesson is when art suddenly becomes familiar, open an anatomy book and allow it become unfamiliar again.

--Gabriel Palma

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