Drawing Connections

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Being able to meet with others, chat, and sketch, are all pleasures that we have come to appreciate more since the lockdowns. The ‘Urban Sketchers Gloucestershire’ group has grown steadily over the last year, and our meetups are lively, friendly events to look forward to. Last week we were in Painswick, a beautiful village with an overload of fascinating views and buildings to challenge our sketching abilities!

The month before we met up at The Boho Bakery, in King’s Stanley – a great meeting place in yet another interesting Gloucestershire village with lots of sketching attractions (as well as great coffee and cheese scones!)

It might seem that we have managed to recreate a world before the pandemic, enjoying all the benefits that a group can bring – companionship, a sense of shared purpose, support, conversation, community. In our hearts, though, we know that the world has changed. A global pandemic, and now war in Europe, exposes the fragility of our securities and institutions. We talk of Ukraine and Covid, but only in passing; there is a shared acknowledgment of the anguish and distress, as well as an appreciation of our own good fortune. It doesn’t dominate the conversation – we are having a fun day out – but it is there. It seems to me that we tacitly recognise that it is too overwhelming and emotional to focus on for long, but we need to acknowledge and share its impact with each other, even in these fleeting moments and comments. Although the world has changed, our need for each other is a constant factor, even more crucial in the face of destruction and violence.

We have been sketching in beautiful rural locations, but there are other remarkable people facing up to the devastation and horror of war. Ukraine before the war had a number of urban sketching groups – hard and painful to imagine the trauma that has overtaken their lives and those around them. Powerful, heartbreaking drawings for example from https://www.instagram.com/potapenko_iryna_art/ can pull us into the awful reality if we can bear it – and underline the fact that we are so privileged to have that choice. A big part of me wants to block it out as it is too distressing – but I also want to acknowledge that we are all linked as humans, and have to share the awfulness as well as the pleasure of life. And of course, devastation is not confined to Ukraine.

The personal and immediate quality of sketches bring us closer to the experience of having our ordinary everyday lives ripped apart by violence and destruction. This comes across in the work of George Butler, a ‘reportage illustrator’ who has travelled and sketched in Ukraine – a fascinating article about his sketches in conflict zones can be found here – https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/mar/26/ukraine-war-artist-george-butler-drawings-kyiv-odesa

There have been very many responses by various artists to support Ukraine. One example is Nick Wonham, a printmaker who has produced some powerful linocuts to illustrate his brother Jonathan’s poems in a limited edition book, The Lady on the Plank: Poems for Ukraine. His prints can be seen at https://www.instagram.com/nick_wonham_printmaker/

It all seems a long way from the peace and tranquillity of Gloucestershire villages, but I imagine months ago the violence felt very far from parts of Ukraine too. I’m not suggesting that Painswick is under immanent threat but rather pointing to the connections between us all, and the ways in which sketching, printing, painting, ‘art’ in all forms has the ability to link us together if we can let it.

A Different Viewpoint

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It seems hard to be writing about hope without sliding into platitudes. On every front, politically, economically, socially, environmentally, culturally we seem to be set on destructive pathways, and any positivity has to overcome a barrage of the negative. But the bloody-minded part of me is fighting not to be overwhelmed by all this bleakness and I’m supported in this by, amongst others, the little groups of sketchers who have been regularly gathering via Zoom. Unable to fulfil the urban sketching aim of ‘drawing the world one drawing at a time’ in its original sense, we’ve been finding all sorts of ways to explore and draw the world we are in, or would like to be in. Of course, it is all conducted online, with photos and Google maps and street views. It’s important though to remember that Google has it’s own particular perspective on the world, and to not take it too seriously.

I’m always interested in perspective. The Gloucestershire Urban Sketchers have been doing a series of ‘Perspective Challenges’, choosing a photo each week to stretch our ability to capture unusual angles and views. We started with classical perspective, straight lines, vanishing points and all – looking upwards at skyscrapers, down narrow descending pathways, up at looming bridges. Even translating a two dimensional photo into a sketch can be challenging with these sorts of subjects.

But in the end it seems to me a rigid and unsatisfying way to look at the world, and it has driven me back to re-reading David Hockney talking about perspective. So many years of exposure to photography have almost convinced us that we really do see the world in the same ways as a camera. In fact our eyes work differently from a camera lens, giving us a much more fluid, partial, fragmented view as they scan the surroundings, and many artists have tried to capture that.

Hockney says,

“Most people feel that the world looks like the photograph. I believe it almost does, but not quite. And that little bit makes all the difference” *

Having two eyes means we can see more than one view at a time. I was talking with another group facilitator about working online, who mentioned that in a real time group, it seemed possible to focus both on the group as a whole and on particular members at the same time. Online it seemed more difficult – switching from gallery to speaker view meant losing clear visual contact with the whole group.

Despite our own experience, however, the acceptable way to see the world and reproduce it in our popular culture is to use classical perspective. Drawings are commonly judged by their representational accuracy, which is translated as adherence to this particular way of seeing the world. Difference is often criticized as ignorance, naivety, or lack of skill. Who knew Picasso could ‘really’ draw??

Any rigid adherence to one perspective seems particularly problematic right now. It’s one of the depressing features of life now, where nationalism and sectionalism have become more pervasive and more violent. Even in the small world of urban sketching we need to stay open to multiple ways of seeing and representing what we think we see. Retreating into nationalism cuts us off from other traditions that look at the world differently. Japanese and Chinese painting have a very different take on perspective, for example; so too does Native American, Aboriginal and Maori art. So do many painters, sculptors, printers, both past and present, who can help prise us out of our preferred mind-set if we let them.

A History of Pictures David Hockney and Martin Gayford 2016 p.73

Zooming about with groups

What do you see?

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There are so many pieces being written about the lockdown, that I think it has all been said. But often I need to write to understand more about what is happening, as a way to think about it with socially distant but emotionally present others, so ….

The word ‘lockdown’, in its simplicity /crudity doesn’t come near to capturing the complexity of the situation. I want to try and think about contexts, a recurring theme in most of my writing about psychotherapy, and about perception.

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One of the great attractions of sketching is the way it makes me look more closely at what is there. I assume I know what a pile of books looks like until I try to draw it, and discover that I need to look again and again as the shapes, tones, proportions, colours reveal themselves to me. We all make so many assumptions of ‘knowing’.

We knew, for example, that it wasn’t possible for most people to work from home: we knew that the local pub sold alcohol, not eggs, milk, and fresh vegetables: we knew that traffic and rush hour was unavoidable: we knew it was impossible for political decisions to be made quickly – and so on. But now we have to look again, ‘knowing’ and living it differently.

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What I hope we can see more clearly, apart from the incompetence and arrogance of the government, is that the people we need to keep us alive and functioning are not the highly paid elite but the medics, nurses, carers, shop assistants, delivery people, refuse collectors, volunteers, neighbours – most of whom see little financial reward or recognition when times are ‘normal’. Then they are conveniently overlooked in a contemporary political/economic context where money goes to money. This distorting haze of ‘normality’ has been blown away to reveal how our society is largely sustained by its low paid and under valued members.

Our priorities have been reordered, or exposed. We see a capacity for compassion, co-operation, altruism, and neighbourliness. We discover a mutuality and interdependence that is ‘normally’ hard to recognise.

Being locked down has made us see the importance of being outside and discovering that the bird song is rapturous when it’s not drowned out by traffic. The countryside is recognised as a precious resource, at last. My neighbours, who have lived there for over thirty years, have never been out for a local walk before and tell me how lovely it is!

Getting outside is a privilege rather than a nuisance and we see things that we have never noticed before…and are in danger of losing.

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We see too the sharp divides between those with space and gardens, online access, food delivery systems and all those without. Lockdown hopefully enables a clearer vision of the inequalities and injustices of the ‘normal’, both nationally and globally. Even more hopefully, it might enable us to question and challenge the ‘normal’ political and financial decisions that sustain such inequalities – but we will see.

Back in my own version of this lockdown, there is little traffic, a lot of dog walks, friendly encounters at a distance, endless zoom meetings, online classes – and a sense of space and calm that is new. It has surprised me – I thought I already lived a calm life! I hadn’t appreciated the powerful influence of a context in which traffic, pollution, time and financial pressures, daily struggles getting to work or school, health inequalities and social hardship can shape and colour everyone’s existence. It’s obvious now I can see it!

But of course there is another layer. I wonder why I am not using this space to get on with my various printmaking projects, all very active before the lockdown began. I’ve kept up with the sketching – more than usual – but not printmaking. For me, printmaking is a long process, from making the plate, proofing, sorting paper, inking up, printing, to finally cleaning up. At a time where there is so much space and opportunity, I find I don’t have the patience.

A sketch can be done in 20 minutes, with no cleaning up. There’s some underlying anxiety that keeps me from concentrating for much longer than that. So living through a global pandemic turns out not to be so calm after all! This garden, this street may be quiet and peaceful, but the bigger context is awash with distress, panic, pain and helplessness. It washes through all of us and we cannot after all, shut our eyes to it.

Having our eyes open can reveal the wonder, beauty and compassion, and also the distress, cruelty and injustices around us. The worst outcome seems to me to get back to ‘normal’ and turn a blind eye to both.

Celebrate the doodle!

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The doodle returns! It has been buried beneath more important and worthy projects such as book writing, editing, printmaking, gardening and even dog walking. But now as the year closes down, in the long dark evenings – kerpow! – doodling is back!

It’s hard, though, not to be dismissive. It’s just a doodle, a repetitive mark making exercise, a trifle, only valuable for using up the backs of old envelopes.

But in a past life of psychotherapy training, wasn’t it a possible route to deciphering ‘the unconscious’? Wasn’t it something that once decoded could provide valuable insights into the mysterious interior processes that shape our lives? So I find myself once more reading passages from Marion Milner’s ‘In the Hands of the Living God’ – a detailed account of her 20+year professional relationship with a female patient where drawing/doodling was a key aspect. In many ways I find it a difficult read now but it is still a fascinating testimony to the communicative power of ‘art’ in a therapeutic relationship.

Most of us, however, are not doodling in that context; we are more likely to be stuck in some situation such as a lecture, meeting, phone call, where our attention is split between what we are supposed to be attending to and the shapes emerging from the end of our pen. For my part the resulting doodle is generally despatched to the recycling box without a second thought these days.

This is the doodle that emerged as I was thinking about this blog post…. probably ripe for analysis!

But here I am, obviously thinking about the process again. There must be some magic pull in the doodle – why does anybody do it?

Often it involves repetitive mark making, going over and over the paper with the same hand movement. There is something soothing in this, but also like many other repetitive movements such as knitting, it seems to free up some part of the mind to wander.

Being ‘just a doodle’ rather than a drawing or a sketch frees it from any judgment of artistic merit, and it can wander where it will, liberated from criticism. In a parallel fashion, our minds can wander too, sometimes making their way to that very mysterious and wonderful place we call creativity. Inspiration can often spring from doodling! (Claudia McGill , artist, is a good example here!)

It works in psychotherapy settings too. I’m thinking of a supervision group for group facilitators where the introduction of ‘doodling’ has had a very liberating and creative effect. It seemed difficult to generate a freely flowing conversation, despite it being a group that was experienced and committed to reflexive practice. When we explored the inhibitions, some were about fears of judgment; not good enough, not thoughtful enough, and some the familiar ‘your business is more important than mine’ theme.

Doodles are not open to either of these restrictions. One person’s doodle is as useful as another’s; doodles are neither good or bad, they just are. Once we got hold of the idea that when we spoke in the group, we were doodling, and that we could doodle together, the conversation could breathe…. And we got to some very interesting and creative places as a result.

Let’s celebrate the doodle!

Maps and mapmaking in psychotherapy

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book cover

After two years, Psychogeography and Psychotherapy: connecting pathways is published, dramatically reducing my ‘to do’ list. It is still reverberating though, with a blog on the importance of place for Psychotherapy Excellence, and the makings of another one here.

There are various ideas that emerged in the process of writing and editing that are still bubbling away, and one of those concerns maps and mapmaking. I wrote a chapter on that subject for the book, and this blog is in part taken from there.

It’s an enormous and fascinating area but for now I am thinking about internal maps – the ones we navigate our lives by. The comfort zones, no –go areas, familiar pathways and threatening routes that guide us day to day through our experiences of self and other.

For many people, maps provide helpful metaphors in understanding and thinking about how they feel and behave – perhaps because they can provide both a cognitive, ‘practical’ way of understanding their situation and the possibility of imagining alternative choices. The map can function in a way like the teddy bear, the transitional object; it is real in the sense that it is a tangible object but, like the bear, it encompasses other layers of function and possibility, straddling the boundaries of ‘common sense’ and ‘hidden meanings’.

In therapy, for many clients, it turns out that the map is the problem. They are travelling up and down, forwards and backwards across a tightly defined and very familiar set of streets and landmarks. There are major avenues: ‘I’m too much for people’,‘ If I start crying I would never stop’, ‘Keep your distance’, ‘Relationships never work’, ‘I’m a terrible person’, ‘Why do people always leave me?’ There are lots of well-trodden streets, such as ‘Nobody really cares’, ‘Everyone takes and no one gives me anything’, ‘I’m only trying to help’, ‘It’s not my problem’ or ‘It’s all my fault’. We are cycling or walking around an estate, visiting every street in turn, spending hours in the rather run-down and desolate playground or scrap of parkland, before turning back once more to walk the same old streets.

We need a new map with bigger horizons and new perspectives, and sometimes the old map just needs to be folded up and put away. The more we insist that somewhere in its streets we will find ‘the answer’ or the ‘solution’, the more we deceive ourselves. Under the guise of working hard, we can remain in this uncomfortable – yet profoundly comfortable – impasse forever. The map has become the attachment object and weaning the client onto a more complex and more open version can be a difficult task for all concerned. The task of therapy is always to expand the map, for both client and therapist.

We may find our way out of the estate and onto the open road, but the exhilaration may be short lived. Instead of walking through the streets we know by heart, we can end up driving up and down the motorway network. At some point, our responses become so predictable and habitual that they carve a highway on our map of the situation. We are continually driving up and down the same piece of territory until we create what is in effect an internal motorway. Motorways are very efficient for certain sorts of travel in some situations, but they are bland and monotonous and pay little regard to the subtleties of the landscape they cut through. Finding other, less well-known routes, smaller and more interesting roads that open up different views of the towns and countryside and cause us to look around, and not get caught up in our routine emotions – this is hopefully what therapy can offer.

In most long-term therapy, there is a point where the client tells me that I must be bored, listening to the same old things repeating week after week. ‘Going round in circles’ is another travelling metaphor that can be opened out, with the help of a map, into something less despondent and negative. It needs a map that pays attention to the details, for these are the signs of change and life in what otherwise appears to be a repetitive trudge along a well-worn track. Those internalised routes through life that have eventually brought people into therapy are powerful and persistent. Despite our best conscious efforts, we are seemingly glued to them, tenaciously attached. Lasting changes come about through incremental shifts; recognising that this week’s walk has pushed further into the undergrowth, stopping to admire the bluebells, noticing a small track leading uphill, taking the path around the bramble patch rather than insisting on walking through it.

Mapmaking always involves abstraction. It protects us from being overwhelmed by the complexity of life, and is a necessary, valuable process. . But there are points where its simplicity or rigidity is suffocating, and in order to breathe we have to look again more closely and creatively. We need our own maps, but we also need the flexibility to modify and redraw them.