#open sessions

A Page from the Drawing Papers Archive

This page from Drawing Papers 67 features Untitled No. 8, drawn with pencil on paper by Ingólfur Arnarsson in 2006.

The exhibition Levity: Selections Spring 2007 explored lightness as both a material and metaphoric condition in the work of fourteen emerging artists selected from the Viewing Program. Levity presented drawings made using a variety of methods and materials—including light itself—to investigate transparency, highlight a humorous view of mundane objects and situations, or compose whimsical and joyful imagery.

Arnarsson’s subtle pencil drawings are made on smooth, brilliant-white, intimately sized paper. They are composed of a lattice of cross hatched lines, and can take weeks to accumulate into a completed work.  From a distance, the individual drawings seem like serial elements: rhythmically balancing or disrupting the dynamics of their environment. Up close, the drawing’s inherent tactility always becomes apparent, a testament to its laborious creation.

The Drawing Papers are a series of publications documenting The Drawing Center’s exhibitions and public programs and providing a forum for the study of drawing. For more information about Drawing Papers 67, click here.

August 3 | The Drawing Center's upcoming group exhibition ‘Where Do We Stand? Two Years of Drawing with Open Sessions' allows 36 artists to consider their relationship to drawing as a medium, process + metaphor. Contemporary drawing, encompassing video, sculpture + photography installations will be on display, as well as traditional drawing forms.

"We must risk delight. We must have the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world."

Jack Gilbert, poet

In 2015, the Institute for Collaboration and Play (IFCAP) was born out of an insistence that delight belongs in our artistic practice and personal lives. We made it our mission to instigate delight in ourselves and our programming. We understand that delight often travels alongside the more familiar disappointment, outrage and despair. And yet, cultivating delight allows for a different kind of expression, perhaps more akin to the exuberance with which we initially discovered magic in creativity and each other. Risking delight is its own kind of protest.

IFCAP is carving out intentional, active space for artist/humans interested in how a focus on Play and Collaboration informs their thinking, making and being. Our inaugural year welcomed the participation of performers, directors, actors, playwrights, dancers, choreographers, poets, musicians, producers, drama therapists, psychologists, educators and activists, ages 22 to 50+.

Since our founding, we have hosted workshops in Clown and launched (RE)Discover, a workshop for artists creating new work in any form. We also launched the PLABORATORY, a Laboratory for Play, and hosted multiple Open Sessions, providing opportunities for anyone interested in Play to join us.  We worked with Guest Artists Gabriel Levey and Carine Montbertrand, expanding the applicability of Play already afoot in the PLAB’s monthly sessions.

Additionally, IFCAP Founder/Director Catherine and PLAB member Matt Wilson attended The Association for the Study of Play (TASP) Conference in March at Rutgers. Cat led a PLABORATORY workshop for an incredible group of Play theorists, educators and practitioners. As Guest Artist, Cat also brought PLABORATORY pedagogy to students at Middlebury College as they prepared for productions of A Midsummmer Night’s Dream and Stupid F*cking Bird. The students and faculty there are amazingly willing to jump into every messy Play experiment proposed! These and all our adventures are chronicled here on our WonderBlog.

In February 2017, the PLABORATORY will return with twice as many meetings as the previous year! A full schedule of dates and information on how to participate is available here, including dates of our Open Sessions. We are also developing PLAB WORKS/PLAB READS, additional opportunities for members of the PLAB to collaborate with the larger performance-making community. We continue to pursue opportunities to bring IFCAP ideas and activities to colleges, universities, artist-training programs, rehearsal rooms and dinner tables.

We also encourage you to visit our FaceBook page, which includes ways to Collaborate and Play with other like-minded individuals and organizations and is another forum for public discourse about why Play matters.

Thank you for risking delight with us! We look forward to seeing you in 2017!