In which the Drawing Devices go walkabout

Image copyright Pete Ashton 2017

Back in November artist Pete Ashton spent three months in the gallery at BOM making work as part of the Instructions for Humans exhibition. As part of his work on this project, Pete invited gallery visitors to take a typewritten instruction and use it to make a piece of art. I had the instruction, "walk in a straight line," and used this with one of my Drawing Devices to make a drawing for Pete's archive. As a result of that Pete invited me to bring some of my Drawing Devices into the gallery as part of his Data Art Week.

Image copyright Pete Ashton 2017

I assembled a dozen Drawing Devices and invited gallery visitors to take one out for a walk. The Devices were hidden inside sealed paper carrier bags. I explained that something inside the bag would make a drawing based in their movements, but participants had no idea what it was that they were carrying, or what the outcome would be.

Image copyright Pete Ashton 2017

Some people took the Devices for short walks, some kept them for several days. One participant uses an electric wheelchair, two participants used bikes, others walked and ran with their carriers.

Image copyright Pete Ashton

It was really gratifying to see the participant's responses when we finally opened the bags and revealed the drawings made. Each drawing was different, especially in the intensity of marks made. A couple of the drawings were very light, I guess the pens didn't deliver the ink very well. The most satisfying drawings were those that had been worked on over several days, making intense images.

One of my favourite drawings was the one made by the wheelchair user, which resulted in very delicate distinctive lines. This one was so satisfying because of it's uniqueness among all the images that have been created with the Devices. It inspires me to explore other forms of movement to create drawings; perhaps by train, canoe, horseback....

Image copyright Pete Ashton 2017

With the work I did over the summer using the wind to make drawings and the work I started at the Solstice drawing over ley lines and with dowsing equipment, I am beginning to amass quite an extensive catalogue of drawings.