Exercise Three // Denise Zygadlo

April 20 2020
Hi  Denise  to kick off exercise one,  where are you and how has your process changed since staying at home?

  My process hasn’t change very much, I live in a rural area and am used to being fairly isolated. Apart from project cancellations work continues as usual. However, the changes brought about by the crisis have affected the way I think about my work. I find I feel more liberated in my approach and I’m trying to stick to a routine and daily plan to keep focused, I’ve joined up with #artistsupportpledge and I feel generally more connected to other artists via text/Instagram than I do normally.

 

Whats last or current song you listened to (no cheating, we all have naughty

comforts)?

 Hot 7 jazz on radio 3

 

and the last or current show/film/video you watched ?
Spygame with Robert Redford and Brad Pitt, naturally. 

 

What are you reading right now?

The Years by Annie Ernaux

 

What’s the last thing you cooked? (recipes welcome!)

 Roasted parsnips, carrot and garlic brushed with a mix of olive oil, soy sauce, cider vinegar, turmeric, black pepper and rye bread.

 

 What's the next thing you are going to cook?

Tuna steaks with peas and raw carrot salad with roasted sunflower seeds, raisns, French dressing and black pepper

 

If everything in your house was going to be the same colour what colour

would you choose?
 The colour in our sitting room just now, a kind of duck egg blue.

 

Which words or phrases do you most overuse  ?
 I’m afraid it’s probably ffs
 
Do you have any superstitions?
My children planted fruit pips in the summer of 1987 and my daughter’s pear pip grew into a tree. When we moved house in 1992 we took the wee tree with us and planted it in our new garden. As the years went by it began to lean to one side and eventually leant itself on the edge of the house. My daughter had her own difficulties going on and somehow I connected the two and started propping up the pear tree with a big stake which I shifted further up the trunk at intervals, gradually lifting it. I finally took the decision to cut off some of the limbs on the tree which were causing an imbalance, this seemed drastic, but low and behold my daughter’s problems began to be solved one by one. With each prop shift I felt her dreams were beginning to come to fruition and she married last May. The pear tree never bloomed until last year – one blossom – and though it did not produce a pear my daughter became pregnant and the baby is due May 3rd! Although I don’t think of myself as superstitious I make sure the pear tree is well looked after and continue to move the prop a little every so often. It leans a bit at the base, but the rest of the tree grows straight upwards – who knows…………

  

What makes you laugh (feel free to share any videos, memes, record a

joke, your pet)

The ridiculous video my son Rudi and I made at xmas – very silly, but it was so hilarious to make …………

https://www.facebook.com/zygadlomusic/videos/656957848393458/

 

 Which artist-living or dead would you like to share your quarantine practice with? Why?

Egon Schiele – I’d just love to sit and watch him drawing – exquisite. He was the artist we were shown on foundation during life drawing class and I was so impressed by his style, he has always stayed with me. 

 

Exercise 2

Write a drawing prompt you would like someone else to receive:

 Draw a self portrait without a mirror, by using touch to follow the contours of your face

 

We are probably going to get through a lot of these homework sheets - so

write a question for other people that you want to know the answer to ?
 What is the most important aspect of your work that makes you keep going?
 

We are putting together a mixtape -  what’s your go to song for dancing ?

being in the studio ?

Happy - Pharrell or Heard it through the Grapevine - Marvin Gaye

 

chilling out ?

Deborah - Bill Evans

 

falling in love ?
Loving you - Minnie Riperton

 

 

For  Exercise Three, we ask our artists to  pick one of the following subjects as a starting point to make some work using an A5 piece of paper/cloth/whatever you like to the size  with no restriction on media. These will be published on our website and available for £110 each.

  1. Still life: pick 3 items from your surrounding and recreate them

  2. Draw the last text you received/Page 15 from a book you are currently reading 7th sentence down

  3. Draw the last exhibition you saw/in style of the last exhibition you saw

 

Check out Denise'sfinished  artwork here:

 3 items from my studio – spot the icon - collage with printed organza, tracing paper prints and guache