Part Three | Interdisciplinary Practice

Interdisciplinary practice opened my mind to the possibilities of unconventional drawing techniques but also completely outside of the box creative thinking. The short course in first year was extremely challenging to my beliefs of what art is, the justification of people’s creative process, and how anyone would make a career from doing something uncommercial. It was great to have first hand experience dabbling in contemporary creative practice. I must admit I felt like a reporter smuggled into a strange cult who ends up with a leading role. I chose to surrender to my preconceived ideas of what art can be and instead opened up to what other people are passionate about and in the process got inspired to do new things which to this day I still wouldn’t call art but if I wanted to call it art… I could. Smearing a dog turd on a piece of paper and bringing it into the class was probably a highlight. I was outside with the class finding alternative and contemporary ways to draw. Most people were walking around looking confused while I sat under a tree with a pen hanging from it hoping it would make some sort of mark – we’d just had a lecture that mentioned Tim Knowles. I lost count of the times I, just like my mother, warned people not to tread in the poo which was lurking nearby. A thought came to me that to avoid the poo was also avoiding a possible method of drawing. So I taped paper to my foot and walked over the specimen confidently, as if I hadn’t noticed it. This was to be a permanent recording of what would usually be wiped back onto a clean section of grass. It would have been a grand idea but unfortunately my idea wasn’t well received by the majority of the class including myself who couldn’t keep the acid reflux at bay. Unsurprisingly my earliest piece of contemporary art met it’s end in the local refuse tip where it, and most other art of its likeness belongs. Interdisciplinary Practice got the ball rolling with my interest in combining elements of different processes and disciplines but as my passion for painting is strong, it of course manifested itself in that medium.