The transformation of dirt on a surface into a world of light, air, weight, space, movement — that’s art. That’s the beginning and the end. That’s not to be avoided.

Georges Seurat, the Artist’s Mother, 1882-83, conté crayon on paper.
Images in this article are included under the fair use exemption.

This Seurat, Giacometti and Poussin are dedicated to the multiple students (you all seem to be freshman) who are petitioning to get into my advanced figure drawing class, without having the prerequisite drawing classes.

First, the answer is “no.” These drawings demonstrate why.

Top: Nicolas Poussin, A Dance to the Music of Time, 1640, brush (and a bit of and ink wash. Courtesy of National Gallery of Scotland.

Bottom: Alberto Giacometti, Annette, 1954.

The basic fundamentals that you all are telling me you already know and are too advanced for, those fundamentals of drawing — relationships of shape, edge, line, value, the organization of space, figure/ground relationships, mark, the sense of touch, learning to see (the world, your work, and the work of others), learning to learn, learning to speak about and think about art — those things are IT. That’s art. The transformation of dirt on a surface into a world of light, air, weight, space, movement — that’s art. That’s the beginning and the end. That’s not to be avoided. That’s to be absorbed in as many ways as possible, over as many hours as possible, hearing from as many different artist-teachers as possible.

The transformation of dirt on a surface into a world of light, air, weight, space, movement — that’s art. That’s the beginning and the end. That’s not to be avoided.

If you want to take my class, fall in LOVE with drawing. Your premature desire to be “advanced” is not persuading me.

I’ll add, I am honored that you want to take my class and are making the extra effort to petition me to get in. Please do come back after you’ve had more drawing. I will then be happy to work with you.

—Anne Harris, Chicago, 22 November 2014

Anne Harris has exhibited at venues ranging from Alexandre Gallery, DC Moore Gallery and Nielsen Gallery, to the National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian Institute, The Portland Museum of Art, the California Center for Contemporary Art and the North Dakota Museum of Art. Her work is in such public collections as The Fogg Museum at Harvard, The Yale University Art Gallery and The New York Public Library. Grants and awards received include a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship and an NEA Individual Artists Fellowship.

Anne Harris currently teaches in the BFA and MFA programs at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is vice president of the board of the Riverside Arts Center and chair of its exhibition committee. She also is the originator of The Mind’s I—a collaborative drawing project designed to investigate the complexities of perception and self-perception through drawing. The first iteration of this project took place at Julius Caesar Gallery in Chicago, Nov.-Dec. 2012.

This article is reprinted with permission of the author.