Before going into the subject of this post, I will mention that this Saturday I will be exhibiting artwork and performing at “Summer Magic”, the fifth-anniversary fundraiser event for CRS, an important supporter of butoh dance, movement theater and healing arts in New York. Info here.
Cross Pollination 02, August 2009, by Fred Hatt
Choreographer Valerie Green’s lovely Green Space Studio in Long Island City (Queens, New York) overlooks the Manhattan skyline and the 59th Street Bridge. Once a month Valerie hosts “Cross Pollination“, an open improvisational session in the studio where dancers, musicians and visual artists can practice their crafts while taking inspiration from each other. For me it’s an opportunity to draw some dance and do some movement myself. Many of the participants alternate between playing instruments and dancing or between dancing and drawing or painting. Here are some of my recent sketches from these events.
Cross Pollination 02, June 2009, by Fred Hatt
Cross Pollination 03, August 2009, by Fred Hatt
Cross Pollination 03, June 2009, by Fred Hatt
Cross Pollination 04, August 2009, by Fred Hatt
Often the movement of the dancers at Cross Pollination is way too fast for me to draw the figures by observation. I either construct the figures imaginatively from fragments observed or caught in memory, as above, or simply use the energy and fleeting impressions of figurative elements to construct abstract compositions like those below. In these I’ve turned the paper to different orientations while working, so if you look at them from different angles you may be able to pick out recognizable body parts.
Cross Pollination 01, June 2009, by Fred Hatt
Cross Pollination 01, August 2009, by Fred Hatt
I know at least one other artist that often attends these sessions has posted her Cross Pollination work on the web. Check out Irena Romendik’s light-footed brushwork.
My drawings pictured in this post are either 18″ x 24″ (45.7 cm x 61 cm), ink on paper, or 50 cm x 70 cm (19.7″ x 27.5″), aquarelle crayon on paper.
5 Comments
Fred, these are some of my favorites so far on your blog! I love the color AND movement, as both set the mind and heart racing. Some questions – did use some sort of comb to create “Cross-Pollination” 2 & 3? I’ve not seen this before… Also — and I’ve seen you use this practice before on works posted in your blog — do you think that your practice of “turn[ing] the paper to different orientations while working, so if you look at them from different angles you may be able to pick out recognizable body parts” is similar to the concept of cubism– showing the subject from several viewpoints? How do you think your process is similar or different? Love it, by the way!
Thank you, Lori. The “comb” effect you asked about on the ink drawings is done with a fan brush. I think the traditional use of the fan brush is to use it dry over oil paint for blending or feathering. But it makes various interesting expressive paint effects. Bob Ross of “The Joy of Painting” used the fan brush to make trees. With ink, it makes a single line if used on the side, and when the brush rotates towards flat, the line spreads into multiple parallel lines.
In the last paragraph of the previous post, “Time and Line”, I related some of what I’m doing to cubism. It’s interesting because I never really loved the cubist paintings, but I thought the ideas behind the cubist movement were interesting, and I think they have influenced me in a way.
Ah, I think your previous post must have been subconscious in the back of my head. I like cubism because the multi-dimentional approach should — by virtue of the fact that you are seeing several “takes” of the same thing, i.e., the same image repeated, but slightly differently each time — offer you a much richer, deeper view of that image.
I don’t see the cubism influence, Fred, but we each bring our own history/likes/conceptions to a viewing. If I were to sum your work in a single phrase, to tell someone to check you out, I’d call it sumi-e on acid. Obviously I prefer Sengaii to Duchamp & bring that viewpoint when saying to myself; “Damn, Fred does good work!”
The psychedelic aesthetic definitely had its effect on my development. I was a kid in the ’60’s, and although I was growing up in Oklahoma, where the local culture was more “Okie from Muskogee” than “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”, my dad subscribed to Avant Garde magazine and Evergreen Review, so for me the trippy hippie style was quite appealingly exotic.
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