“In this David Watkins’ workshop we’ll explore large-scale drawing and painting focused on ideas of connectivity and collaboration. Using Watkins’ own intuitive methods, we’ll begin by working instinctively with inks and tools, allowing forms to emerge naturally before refining them into unique pieces shaped in the moment.
Together we’ll cover the floor and work collectively to create a large-scale piece, experimenting with loose, responsive mark-making and discovering structure through collaboration rather than control.”
Wherever did my notion of “networking” come from? I really should pay more attention to the workshop blurb. I was sure that this session was something about networking. And in my head, networking implies diagrams about nodes” and “pathways”- something mathematical.
Or does “working collectively” mean “networking’?

Watkins began by presenting images of simple networks, talking about the 1990s computer networks and mentioning the work by Stanley Milgram on “6 degrees of separation” which originated from a story written in 1929 by Frigyes Karinthy. Watkins also referenced the abstract paintings of Jackson Pollock.
So far so good. I kept looking at the vast expanse of white paper fixed to the floor and to a similar piece attached to the wall. And I regretted wearing my best trousers. What if I splashed them with paint? After Watkins had shown us fascinating images of myceliums crawling across a petri dish ‘making connections`and talking about the “wood wide web” of fungal networks deep in the soil beneath the trees in the forest, we were in invited to have a go at “making a mark”. My marker was most disobliging and would not leave the trail that I was hoping for. So I put it down to take a few photos. I kept eying a four inch brush and a pot of white paint I could definitely cut a wide swathe through the emerging network of black lines, creating new connections and obliterating old ones.

When both vast expanses of paper had been covered in trails of black, with trails of white obliterating emerging networks to create new ones, Watkins sat us down for feedback. He asked us to think about how we worked together. That was interesting. There was definitely a feeling a curiosity and creativity in our group, with some members making marks to link the energy centres while some members felt that that they had been lost in their own zone. We were working together – even if not totally aware of the collaboration. After all, we managed to make our marks without bumping into the others working alongside us! And we dragged our lines to join and cross existing pathways. Our afternoon’s activity reflected the spirit of Contemporary Elders: curiosity, collaboration and creativity. Networking.

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