What kind of a drawing could you produce in a single minute? If you’re thinking doodle you haven’t been in one of Bob Barra’s figurative drawing classes at the Armory Art Center.
The one-minute per pose assignment is a way to bypass your inner critic.
“What happens is that you end up composing on the page much better because you’re working fast,” Barra said. “You’re not thinking as hard. You’re not trying to do something that will hang in the Louvre.”
You might end up with a drawing that’s looser, yet captures the essence of the live model through gesture and the distribution of weight. “You don’t have to put in the fingernails and all,” Barra said.
Gestures: Drawing & Sculpture is the first show in a new series featuring works of the Armory’s instructors and students. Each show will spotlight two different mediums and focus on an aspect in which they share common ground. The exhibitions will be curated by the students and their teachers.
“We wanted more exhibitions that feature the talents of our students and teachers,” said Liza Niles, chief of education and exhibitions. “There’s a lot of talent here and not enough people see it.”
Gestures, which highlights works by 29 artists, including several residents, brings together works created in Barra’s figure drawing classes and Sandra Levine’s figurative sculpture modeling class. The same three models posed in identical positions for all classes.
The Armory hopes the shows encourage students to try new mediums.
Students of each medium have something to learn from the other. As the introduction to the show says “drawing strengthens the sculptor’s eye and sculpting resolves the challenges of foreshortening for the 2D artist.”
Manalapan resident and Armory board member Linda Silpe has taken classes at the nonprofit visual arts school in West Palm Beach for 20 years. “Bob Barra is beyond an art teacher,” she said. “He’s an educator.”
Nobody in his classes shaves a minute off the three-hour lesson, she said.
Silpe’s several works in the show include some in which she’s experimenting with adding color to her charcoal and graphite drawings. “Color wasn’t my strong suit,” she said. With Barra’s encouragement “I’m getting more comfortable with it.”
Resident Jane Bunn, a former fashion designer, said the best tip Barra gave her was to consider shape before line. “You’re not drawing in a coloring book,” he told her.
Resident Maurizio Candotti Russo, a semi-retired publisher, hasn’t made art in years. Levine’s class is his first at the Armory. His sculptures are an homage to the late French free-diving legend Jacques Mayol, whose memoir he published. He calls his gold-painted, ceramic figure of a reclining woman a “sleeping mermaid.”
The Armory, he said, is “an amazing place,” with a wide array of classes. He plans to take more next season.
If You Go
What: Gestures: Drawing & Sculpture
When: Through Friday
Where: Armory Art Center, 811 Park Place, West Palm Beach
For information: Call 832-1776 or visit armoryart.org
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