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Drawing
Water:
Who Makes Art Valuable?
(2006-Present)
Peter Walsh
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Who
makes art valuable? If you buy any product in today’s
global economy – whether it’s a pair of designer
pants, a can of soda pop, a handcrafted bowl made in a small
village without electricity or an expensive one-of-a kind
oil painting – the price you pay is a complex mix of
economic and social factors. You pay for materials and labor;
distribution by a shipping and retail network; an image transformed
by advertising and branding; and sometimes the “cachet”
created by the fickle social interactions between you and
the people around you.
In the arts, not just the artist
but hundreds of people have had a hand in the chain of creation
and consumption that produces a meaningful artwork.
As part of his ongoing examination
of economics, artist Peter Walsh is drawing portraits of everyone
involved in the making, showing and purchasing of the portraits
themselves - from the meticulous craftsperson who makes a
sheet of drawing paper to the high-flying collector who lays
down her cash, from the worker who digs a pigment out of the
earth to the gallerist who promotes the work and sets the
price.
Drawing Water is
a multi-year art project that will be completed in a series
of easy to accomplish segments – such as drawing the
portraits of a particular group like “the papermakers.”
The work is unfolding slowly, often with great beauty, as
each individual is drawn and the often invisible connections
to other participants begin to be revealed.
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Joseph Fleming-Straus, Model
for the Project Prototype, Drawn at Spring
Studio, New York City on April 1st, 2007 - (26"
by 19"), charcoal and chalk on paper, photo by Christopher
Quirk.
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Some Background Information
About
Drawing Water: Who Makes Art Valuable?
Drawing a likeness is
a traditional art form that seems anachronistic in the era
of digital image capture and manipulation. The strategy for
“Drawing Water” is to use the dignity of the artist’s
own labor and skill to honor the labor, skill and contributions
of others. Hours spent looking at someone’s face and
fashioning a portrait by hand is fundamentally different in
meaning than the quick un-seeing snap of a camera. This difference
will be used as leverage to create a broader portrait of human
relations in our global society.
Drawing Water
is essentially about fair trade. Why does one person in the
economic chain of creation make one dollar per day while another
makes hundreds or even thousands for a similar amount of labor?
How do we negotiate these asymmetrical relationships? How
do we justly evaluate the contributions of so many individuals
and communities? Walsh is working to answer these questions
by using his own labor, skill and knowledge as a kind of human,
non-monetary yardstick to measure qualities such as dignity
and hard work, not just price and paycheck size.
In Drawing Water,
each participant is presented equally in same-sized portraits
using identical materials to produce a non-hierarchical network
of connections. Participation is voluntary, and financial,
contractual and licensing issues will be negotiated to allow
each sitter to participate in any potential profits.
Future Link (How are the Drawings
Made?)>>
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Who Will Participate in Drawing Water?
Future Link (Particpant
Chart)>>
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Since
the Drawing Water project will inevitably
be a portrait of the broader web of connections between
many people, exactly who these individuals are will
have a large impact on what the final work looks like
and means.
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Participant List
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Raw materials growers,
harvesters and diggers
* Paper materials workers
* Charcoal workers
* Pigment diggers
* Gum and resin collectors
* Other workers
Art Supply Manufacturers
* Paper makers
* Pencil makers
* Pigment makers
* Eraser makers
* Fixative makers
* Framers
Artist and Support Staff
* Artist
* Photographer
* Web designer
* Accountant
* Translators
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Retail Sellers
* Art Supply Store Staff
* Gallery Staff
Transportation Workers
Collectors
Art World Professionals
* Curators
* Critics
* Drawing Teachers
* Drawing Models
* Residency Staff
* Museum Staff
* Granting Panels and Staff
* Art Historians
Audience
* Gallery and Museum Goers
* Students
Project Board
of Advisors
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Photo Gallery
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| Acknowledgements
This is a brand new endeavor,
but there are already so many people to thank. For now, thanks go
out in no specific order to Deidre Hoguet, Chris Quirk, Amy Madden,
Ben Goldman, George Ciscle, Leslie Newman, Noah Loesberg, Deanna
Lee, Jan Razauskas, Gary Kachadourian, Sabrina Vigilante, Chick
Foxgrover, Ted Vial and to Minerva Durham, Robert Diaz and all the
teachers, models and artists at Spring Studio. |
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All Content © Peter Walsh 2006-2007
Any texts or images appearing on this website are available for reproduction
for free if they are used for personal or small-scale non-profit purposes.
Such usage should be properly credited. Wider distribution for institutional
or commercial use is available for licensing. |
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