Materialism: the drawing cure
Danny Gregory’s everyday matters blog is one of my daily diversions. He is a compulsive sketcher who makes drawings that examine the way he is living. In today’s post he feels a surfeit of objects around him: I feel like I own too much and appreciate it too little. Having diagnosed his own condition, Danny prescribes a cure for himself:
I like the idea of a journal diet. Draw everything you own. Everything. Every single book, every stick of butter and shoelace. Now that would be a humbling experience. Or just draw everything you eat for a week. You’ll be thinner, calmer and happier.
He begins the treatment with an inventory of his wardrobe.
Hmmm, aesthetically pleasing but not without risk. What do you do with each drawing you make of things that you throw out, give away or lose? Do you draw each drawing book that you create?
What becomes of the drawings as they grow into, hmmm, an ever expanding collection that needs to be housed somewhere? Where? a cupboard? a shelf?
And after all the shirts have been drawn and I've started on the pants, what happens if I'm given a new shirt (and I haven't even Begun to think about my kitchen)? Do I abandon the pants, ignore the kitchen and go back, or just make a mental note about my new shirt for future reference? When shall I draw it, or anything else. Oh it's a taxonomic nightmare just waiting to overwhelm me!
Ah, Fiona, I don't think it's about the drawing as a precious object. Isn't it more about the act of drawing, and the way that act affects your perception of your subject?
Why don't you raise this question with Danny, over at Everyday Matters?
Perhaps I will; the notion of drawing (a lovely act, especially of the journally sketchy variety) being employed as a humbling device, is troubling! I'd rather seek out something I've never seen before (and may not again, doesn't matter either way), to draw.
Like a bug. An odd gizmo. The particular lean of my fence as it begins to invite replacement....