Held in the building on the quiet French Concession lane which ARTSpring calls home, the “2nd (semi) annual Shanghai 24-hour Draw” was a round-the-clock flurry of creative activity. 24 hours of non-stop drawing might sound like the fiendish decree of a mad despot but the continual circulation of new faces, regular schedule of activities, and ample flow of food and drink assured a cheerful event all the way through the break of dawn.
The day, which was organized together with Diagrammism, the sobriquet of artist Lucinda Holmes, and Double Fly, the multi-media artist collective, kicked off at 10 o’clock outside in the lane, where sidewalk chalk was dispensed to neighbors young and old. At lunch an assemblage of fruits were stripped of their skins and drawn naked by the coterie of artists, many of whom were inspired to shed their own clothes in the afternoon sun. Figure drawings, fantasy drawings, cartoons, still-lifes and uncategorizable linework filled sketch books until the dinner barbecue. A spirited portrait-drawing contest, night sky illustrations, and improvisational interpretive draw led by the poets of H.A.Literature carried the determined crew on past midnight. The small hours were occupied by a ribald live online “draw-room” and mellower projects, until the birds began to sing. In the aftermath a selection of completed works was chosen by the artists of Double Fly for special commendation in a variety of categories.
Besides the general liveliness of the occasion one broad impression from the day relates to the intrinsic value of drawing. We have a troubling relationship with images in the digital age. Every day we point lenses from a multitude of different devices, recording fragments of isolated scenes and uploading them to be made almost instantaneously available to viewers in every corner of the world. The image is replacing experience. To spend an extended stretch of time in drawing, knowing the nature of time itself through ones physical motion and observations of one’s eye, is to experience the ordinariness of a day in happy unison with its distinctiveness.