Much of my art is clay, which I (Sandy Toland) do at the Arvada Center Ceramics Studio. I've missed the camaraderie and inspiration of the clay studio while it's been closed. Because clay is too messy to do at home, I concentrated on doing Exquisite Corpse drawings with my artist friend Nikki Evans, who lives in Massachusetts.
An Exquisite Corpse drawing is done by folding a sheet of paper into thirds: the top third is for the head drawing, the middle is for the body, and the bottom third is for the legs and feet. We each start drawings, doing one third of it and folding it over and wrapping the completed section in paper so that you can't see what has been drawn. All we see, to start the new section, is a couple lines where the completed drawing ends. Then we mail our drawings back and forth, so that the next section can be drawn by the other artist.
It's always fun to see the final drawing and how the sections work together. We inspire each other and there's a challenge to come up with new images, which the coronavirus pandemic and other current events have helped with. It provides a connection to the outside world, motivation to finish something while sitting in limbo, and something wonderful to look forward to in the mail.
