The concept came to me as I half-dozed on the plane to Chicago this morning. I had taken an early flight to give myself time to sit on a bench by Cloud Gate, the famous silver “bean.” But the radical idea that slipped into my awakening mind (a fertile time for ideas!) was this: draw something and involve strangers.
Last week, I wrote about how I wanted to find ways to improvise art, playing off the ideas of others. This might be a way to do that.
Crazy. Crazy enough to work, that is.
I’d need a sheet of foam core to go with my markers. As chance would have it, there was a Dick Blick store right around the corner from my hotel. So, trying not to get blown away, I tucked the board under my arm and walked the windy streets toward the park.
I knew I had to draw something to get people to come over. So I started on a rendering of the sculpture. And I had a title: Reflections. I also had a question to pose to those who engaged me: What are you more preoccupied with – something that recently happened or something that’s about to happen? That would decide which side of the drawing I’d put them. And it’d give them something to think about while I sketched them.
Then I’d get them to put their thought onto the drawing in their own handwriting.
It worked wonderfully. For a couple of hours, I had a nice stream of people pose for me. Along the way I met:
- a middle-aged man from India, looking forward to enjoying his reunion with his son
- a young woman from Australia regretting how long it took her to pry herself loose from her dull job and do something big
- another young woman, this time from Central America, who spoke no English but wrote her thoughts in Spanish
- a man in his twenties who is struggling to find work and wrote about anticipating good things to come
- a Hispanic teenager who remarked that I had made her look beautiful. I told her that was because she was beautiful. She laughed, surprised and, I think, pleased.
As I wrapped up the drawing, a quiet college student sidled up to the table. Nicole introduced herself as a student at a nearby art school. When I asked, she showed me her sketchbook and we talked about engaging people with art – something she says she does often. We chatted easily, finding a connection in our mutual love for creating.
Would I do it again? Probably. Or maybe it’ll be some other exploration of that line between artist and audience. I’m just happy that for at least this Benched outing, I wasn’t just caught up in reflection.
It was the right time to step up to a challenge.
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