Always Asking, "What is Possible?"

At least, that's what the 60-some-year-old teacher of my instructed life drawing class said tonight. "Always ask yourself, 'what's possible?'. Drawing is an extension of consciousness. Don't scribble. Don't be too constrained, too thoughtful. Just feel it. Feel what draws you to this pose. And always think, 'where am I going with this?'"

Biking the 35 minutes over there after running out of the office at 5 so I could make it home to get my bike, pencils and paper and then make it over the the far end of the Mission neighborhood by 6:15, I thought that my attendance was the limit of possibility. The fact that I, as someone with no artistic abilities, no drawing experience, was rolling up to this incredible studio filled with people who have been drawing for decades, seemed to be a far reach in the realm of possible. This was me, stretching.

So I stretched my way in, awkwardly situated myself behind a drawing board with 40 sheets of newsprint and charcoal stubs and wondered what I was doing there. The class started--and it is 20 weeks in to an instructional course--with a 15 minute session of poses. The model poses, you draw; she warns you: "Ten seconds"; you turn over to a new sheet; she adjusts; you draw. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

Before the class started, I had asked the woman next to me, "umm, so how do you do this?" And she said, "Just feel it. If you can, try not to even look at the page. Just let it flow." It turns out, she was very talented, but strangely unsure of herself. She confessed when we discussed our work, her feelings of anxiety over the possibility of being a bad "drawer" (and then "I don't think that's a thing. Unless you're a piece of furniture." She laughed.) And the thing I learned first was that no one was sure of herself; all of us were awkward and uncertain. The thing I learned next: beginning with the premise that I suck at something is actually great for me. It works well in yoga, too: I think I'm terrible, so I just let it go. And at the end of the three hour class, I was happy with what I had done. There is no doubt that it isn't art. No doubt that it is the creation of a talentless hack, but it is a creation of a three hour stretch beyond my expectations of myself. It was a manifestation of what was possible, for me. And this: having 30 sheets of charcoaled passably human bodies rolled up in my bag while I bike home at night through abandoned city streets, feels like where I might be going. There is no definition to it, no certainty, and no comfort. Just bliss and energy and an edge of fear.