The name “Morning Drawing” comes from a project I did between the years 2008 and 2012, for which I made a work on paper every morning and posted it online. This summer I decided to end my practice of Morning Drawing, and as a last gesture, to share it with other artists. The invitation was extended to people working in vastly different fields, from painters to performance artists, poets to video installation makers.

Each artist will choose a seven-day period when he/she will take on the challenge of making a new artwork every day and documenting the process on the residency website. Despite the residency’s title, artists were not asked to make any particular kind of work, but rather to adapt the concept of Morning Drawing to their own practice, and seeing what happens to it when thrust into this set of limitations.

In the years I made Morning Drawing I found myself time and again talking and thinking with other artists about the questions and issues intrinsic to it: What is the value of a daily practice? Is it inherently beneficial to the artist and to the creative process? What about the concept of the time-consuming “masterpiece”- can art be made (well) fast? The subjects of having inspiration, as well as the work that comes out of not being inspired, often arose. The Morning Drawing Residency compels both artist and viewer to ponder the role the Internet has come to play in the creative process, as we gear artwork to be seen not only in the selective and highly edited context of the gallery but also on the Internet’s open field of exposure.

Gabriela Vainsencher, organizer

September 2012

Go to morningdrawing.com or gabrielavainsencher.com to see the original project and more about my work.