Four heads are better than one

July 26, 10:37 PMSan Antonio Contemporary Art ExaminerScott Dickens

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Place four artists in a studio with a slew of art supplies and four drawing surfaces, and what do you have? On the 24th of July at the JAC Studio, the end product was Drawing: Impromptu. The live action art-in featured artists Enrique Martinez, Jayne Lawrence, Judith Cottrell and Alex Rubio. The event successfully bestowed upon the city of San Antonio the opportunity to view art in process, as it is created by four gifted artists.

It is not often that the general public can see more than the end product of any work of art. As one wanders the halls of any museum or gallery, it is often left only to mystery or suspicion how the artist conceived and eventually composed any number of works on view around the city. However, such an event as Drawing: Impromptu has allowed for the viewer to take a more intimate role in the creation of art without ever having to lift a pencil or stick of charcoal. Over the course of several hours, the viewer takes part in a grand performance, wherein every flick of the wrist and stroke of the pencil by the artist is susceptible to the gaze of countless eyes, watching and waiting to see what happens next as every instant the artists' tool touches the surface, the composition changes and culminates into something increasingly recognized as form.

Over time, no drawing surface was without the touch of multiple, participating artists. As an artist would alternate between each piece and begin to add his or her own touch, the distinct style brought to the piece by said artist would begin to interact and change the overall look of the composition. The constant overlapping of form, color, and value soon began to culminate into a wonderfully random explosion of ideas in a manner that could not be matched by any one artist working alone. One could not hope to visualize the possible outcome for each piece, as one by one the compositions were sent spiraling towards a destination unknown.

Quite "impromptu" would the end product of four artists working within the same composition be. As each artist is granted enrollment to the school of impromptu drawing, the opportunities for growth and knowledge may have been endless. Armed only with control over one's immediate input towards each composition, each artist could only stand back and watch as others began to draw over that which they had just painstakingly completed. Even for a seasoned artist, the experience must have allowed them the opportunity to view the work as a child might view his or her very first work of art. No matter the degree of skill possessed by each artist, every composition would undoubtedly culminate into something new and exciting.