whatanonsense

I don't know if anyone following me here wonders why I haven't been posting any drawings for more than half a year now. Since a new year has started, I thought I could write a bit again.  

Looking back at the year 2018, it was a very theoretical year for me. When I started studying more than five years ago, I found out relatively soon that drawing requires quite some theory... at least that's what I see. While most people at my university don't. Now, it's not that it is impossible to "just draw" (or "just do it", which seems to be usual advice). Not at first sight, at least. But as soon as I start asking, for example "Do/draw what?", I require an advisor who can think and then answer me. A conversation is needed. And what is said depends entirely on the thinking, the theory (I could just not ask, of course. But then I would just bet that I understood what the advice actually meant, could just stick to what I think anyways, and I wouldn't really need an actual teacher. Besides, what I think anyways might just not work!). 

There are foundations on which someone's thoughts are built. When someone thinks that having financial safety is most important in life, drawing will be merely a tool for that. So their advice will be different from someone who thinks that drawing is a form of self-expression, or that it's a form of communication. Someone who thinks that geniuses must work out of themselves will be different from someone who thinks it's all work and effort. So I learned that I have differently thinking teachers at my university. I looked for those who at least gave me answers and were willing to talk. Parallely I searched for literature about it and stumbled upon Plato, Andreas Speiser and Egil Wyller, also Albrecht Dürer, Leonardo da Vinci, Denman Ross, Heinrich Wölfflin, M.C. Escher and others. There is quite some theory on drawing, art and design out there.

Now, to get back to last year: After some meetings and conversations with one of my teachers (in which each of us tried to explain his own thoughts and understand the other one's), he said that if I wanted all that stuff covered, I should just hold my own lessons. That idea kept to me, some other teachers were fond of it, and in the end I managed to use the current semester - second half of 2018 - to actually do that. I'm currently a voluntary teacher at my university, if you will. So, with all the preparation for that, the thoughts on designing, on beauty, on possible literature, on teaching, on publicity I didn't draw very much in 2018. But drawing is still one of the main ideas of my life. And as far as I can see it, you do not need to spend every single day of your life drawing to be a proper draftsman.

All right. So much for this wall of text. I wish everyone who read through it (and all the others as well) a happy year twothousandandnineteen! And who knows, perhaps at some point I'll start to post drawings again  

So, another semester passed. All exams over. I study "communication design" for five years now, and I love going so slow. I am in the lucky position to be able to take my time and study at my own pace. And to me it seems that I learn so much more than students that have to rush through all the tasks and exams and whatever else.

I don't usually use this "Journal" feature here. But I just felt like "why not?"  

I'd like to quote Andreas Speiser, a mathematician and philosopher from Basel; translated poorly by myself:

"Because in Athens, Florence, in the Rhenish cities there were people who "had leisure"- to use a phrase by Aristotle - science has emerged and grown big. One has to research out of their own curiosity, when one shall find something right."  ("Über die Freiheit", in: "Die geistige Arbeit"; p. 181)