Artistic Cross-Pollination

(Click image for large.) © William Anthony

Last November, I had the honor of meeting and photographing the award-winning Los Angeles architect Michael Lehrer. As stated in his feature in Architect magazine, he is a big proponent of cross-disciplinary artistic exploration. In other words, he actively encourages his architects to occasionally take a break from drafting buildings and instead allow some time to simply, and loosely, draw the human form. So a few years back, they began holding life drawing classes at the studio.

While striking our lighting at the shoot back in November, I humbly asked if I could participate in one of those classes. "Of course!" was the answer. "Bring your own art supplies and $10 for the pizza & wine fund," were the extent of the instructions.

Last night, I dropped in and drew for the first time in twelve years. The last time I got charcoal under my fingernails (not to mention all over my face) was several years before I first stained my tee shirts with photographic developer and fix. My last life drawing class was in 1998. Oh how I missed it.


(Click image for large.) © William Anthony

I hadn't imagined how much that college drawing class informed my later photography. And inversely, I was amazed to see how much my photography informed the drawing. Economy of line, line contour, value, shadow—it all came back. But best of all, there were no rules. No equipment failures. No hovering publicists. No weather cancellations. No CF card corruptions.

Paper. Charcoal. Model.


(Click image for large.) © William Anthony

I encourage other photographers to experience this themselves. You don't need to be able to draw well. It's not about that. It's about freedom and exploration. It's childlike. We all did this when we were children. The only difference was that art was crayon or markers and usually ended up on the refrigerator for sibling critique. But for some reason, as "adults" we rarely make time for this sort of freedom.

The world is complicated. Business is complicated. Relationships are complicated. Drawing is simple.

Thank you Michael, Travis and Mary. Thank you very much.


(Click image for large.) © William Anthony