by Aneesha Shetty, BA(Hons) Fine Arts Level 2 (2019)
“Ellen set us on this journey by encouraging us to disconnect from our material selves and belonging as we moved toward being physically attentive and responsive to our surroundings.”
Ellen Altfest is an American painter who has devoted her practice to painting from life. She takes her visual inspiration from domestic plants, vegetables and more recently, the male figure. On a warm, sunny afternoon at the LASALLE Winstedt campus, she conducted a walking meditation workshop which she referred to as The Hundred Steps. Participants included students from the BA and Masters Fine Arts programme and this piece reflects the journey that we set out together, which turned out to be tranquil yet self-reflective. Our Winstedt campus was a the best place for this workshop with the grounds blurring the lines between the man made and natural spaces.
As a young individual who is technologically reliant and being the typical millennial that I am, my ‘phone’ was never out of sight. As her artistic practice draws on observing and experiencing her surroundings without distractions, Ellen set us on this journey by encouraging us to disconnect from our material selves and belonging as we moved toward being physically attentive and responsive to our surroundings.
Ellen’s approach to this workshop really pushed me out of my comfort zone, and I would imagine for the other participants as well. Rather than focusing on the final outcome of our drawings, she encouraged us to focus on the experience of the process of drawing and the way we responded to our surroundings. An exercise that I particularly found eye-opening was the five-minute challenge. We would take one step, pick a subject, draw it, and then subsequently keep repeating this process every five minutes for a duration of around two hours.
While this exercise may come off as undeniably demanding and strenuous, it is because of it that we were made to be constantly aware of the space when thoughts were generated. What did I wish to observe? Why was I drawn to it? What am I feeling or what do I understand more about this space that I already have a sense of familiarity towards? All these tiny, little thoughts crept into my mind as I recounted Ellen’s advice to take this experience as a way to cleanse the mind and be drawn to the present moment.
At times, even in my practice, it is easy to get caught up in the bigger, more complex issues of how I see and interpret my everyday spaces. This experience with Ellen and her way of driving us to go back to our roots, to look and see what’s present right before us and interpret those simple, yet captivating little moments that I would normally tend to overlook whether it was the way the leaves blow with the wind or the weeds that creep out of the cracks from our pipes or even the way the non-living responds to nature.
I learned how to be sensitive emotionally and physically in touch with my surroundings. Yet the most important lesson was how I learned to be more in-tune with my inner voices. It was a struggle, a battle I have not won to this day, but this experience allowed me to see drawing as more than just a sketch or a trace of what I see. It made me draw as a way to release my thoughts and solely focus on the small yet light-hearted process of experiencing art.
