drunken paw

College / University

the world of collaborative drawing

Member type

Artist

If you're an artist, what kind of art do you make?

Drawing

I am...

drunken paw

drunken paw is a collaborative trio comprised of three artists; Mark Dicey, Leslie Sweder and Janet Turner.

While we each maintain our individual and diverse artistic practices, as collaborators we learn from, challenge and encourage each other. Setting one’s ego aside and allowing for the trust that is necessary in a free and open collaboration becomes consciousness raising, opening up new thinking and possibilities that we may take back to our individual studios. It is a drawing “jam”, improvisational and experimental -- calling for a release of inhibitions. We embrace a sense of play while taking risks and letting go of formal structures.

In a single sitting, our trio creates multiple images simultaneously. Three separate drawings are rotated between the three artists with each taking part in the conversation by reacting to what the others have previously expressed. The responses become automatic, primitive and at times transcendent as the momentum of the session builds. Eventually the group lands on some triangulation of a shared experience, the residual effect of this being a lush landscape of our collective subconscious.

On occasion, drunken paw invites other artists to collaborate with us. These collaborators are chosen specifically because we are drawn to the way they think and approach their own individual practices. Through collaborating in this way we invite new influences into our tightly woven trio. This new influence becomes a catalyst for the direction each work will take in that session. Through providing their imagery to work on (as have photographers) or joining in a drawing session with us, the collaboration then becomes a practice in community building as we open up to the influence of our peers.

Although we have shared some wonderful sessions in our homes, our preference is to work in public. We choose local bars or public houses, places where people gather socially. The public space drunken paw collaborates in is chosen for its atmosphere: the people, energy, sights, sounds and music. As a whole, drunken paw feeds off the rhythm and movement of the surrounding scene, all the while drawing fervently. We are “there” but “not there”, vividly moving the entire experience through us.

Artists I like

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Monday-Bread-Delivery-and-Christ...
d.p. would like to thank Aviv Fried - Sidewalk Citizen Bakery for being such a wonderful baker and for his huge ongoing generosity. see above link.

Centre of the artworld:

nowhere and everywhere