24-Hour Power Drawer

So this last weekend I rode on out to Hotlanta with a bunch of other SCAD students to draw for a long time on large pieces of paper. We spread out five 6ft. by 40ft. (or there abouts) quality paper on the ground and on a makeshift wall and everybody attacked it.
We were situated on the top deck of the school parking garage. This was great since it had a wonderful view of the city and the weather was fantastic. We weren't able to travel anyplace else so this was as much of the city that I could get. After looking at the traffic on the freeway below us I didn't really have the desire to go anyplace. It has been a while since I have seen as much smog as Atlanta has. Of course, we were working in it for the whole 24-hours.

Most of the students that participated were foundations studies students which means they were mostly 18 or 19. This means that most were not very mature in their thinking about this project. Collaboration was too difficult for many to grasp. They would draw their section and get mad at their neighbors that might creep into their area. As if the paper was subdivided and would be cut up after the 24-hours. I really tried to not be an ass to people while imploring them to look at the whole scroll as one and therefore how "their section" would work as part of the whole. I think most still thought I was an ass. It was really only in the last three hours on Saturday that people really started to embrace the idea and fill in unintegrated areas. For instance here is a really nice area where many students drew next to and over each other in harmony.I didn't start drawing until about eight hours into the ordeal. I don't like too many people touching me at one time therefore I had to wait. But even more I waited so that I would be forced to work on integrating drawings rather than having a space of my own. So I wrote/drew out in my script the proposal statement of the whole event all along one scroll and through/interacting with other people's drawings. I thought it was a nice way to drag the viewers eye along the 40ft length. Here is the start of it. Most people liked it well enough, especially viewers not working on that particular scroll, but I actually managed to piss off several stubborn students. I'll bet they grew up in suburbs and didn't know or feuded their neighbors. One group actually blackened over a big section just to get me. I want to be above all that pettiness, but it really made me mad. Not so much my lost work, but that that section looked bad, due to their possesiveness. They whole exercise was about playing well with others and making something that is greater than the sum of its parts. Ah well. Maybe I was that way when I was eighteen as well. What a difference a decade makes.

Anyway here is the view of the city at about 11 at night. It got pretty cold at about 3 in the morning and almost nobody was actually working. They were either sleeping or staring off into space, like me. I'm really glad I participated in this. It would be fun to do again. Maybe with less people David Ellis style. I really like the non-objective layering that his collaborations get.