WORDS: Charlotte Richardson
A GLASTONBURY artist recently emabarked on a mission to draw a piece of his home town every day for a month.
Matt Witt intially created 31 paintings of Glastonbury, capturing some of the less immediately obvious aspects of the area.
Matt said: “Part of the joy of this project is that I am seeing where it takes me, if it leads to an exhibition that would be great (and that outcome is in the back of my mind as a preferred direction), but I am open to seeing where the drawings take me.
“One person mentioned a charity auction, another mentioned displaying the images in pop up guerrilla gallery, someone else mentioned publishing them in a book.
“I want it to be an organic project with a life of it’s own, so I am very much open to the outcome that is grown naturally from the creation of these images over this month.”
The project came about after Matt returned back to Glastonbury from London and went straight out to the Tor with sketchpad and ink in hand to paint the view looking west.
He says: “To this point my daily drawing had consisted of doodles and characters from my imagination, I felt these images were childish and like I had already been through this process already in my early 20s. It seemed to be lacking a certain amount of soul.
“What I was seeking was something more real, honest, and true to my current existence. Something more mature, something that reflected my life at this time, more of a visual diary than a series of inane doodles that said nothing much about me and nothing much about themselves.”
Draw Glastonbury was born and Matt says it is a social experiment too.
“I want to see what happens when a man draws a piece of Glastonbury every day for a month, see where it leads me, so who it brings me into contact with and how it might change my perspective on these people and places. I am also interested in how a project like this might contribute towards changing the direction of ones life, effecting it positively or indeed negatively. It’s about personal development, existence, time, social interaction and becoming one with your surroundings,” he says.
Matt’s ultimate aim will be to display the images in an exhibition in Glastonbury this autumn/winter.
See facebook.com/drawglastonbury for more on the project.
