My face is and isn't me - a drawing workshop
This is the second of 3 creative workshops that are part of the wabi-sabi month I’m running at the moment. This workshop is in 2 parts:
1. An audio mirror meditation.
2. Drawing a blind contour portrait.
My face is and isn’t me
The Zen teacher will ask you, what is your original face? Or what is your original face before you were born?
The term ‘original face’ appears most famously in Case 23 of the koan collection Mumonkan, or “Gateless Gate,” in which the monk Myō, jealous that the Sixth Patriarch Enō has received the robe and bowl of their master, chases him through the mountains and tries to take them by force. Enō places the robe and bowl on the ground and invites Myō to take them. However, Myō finds that they are too heavy to lift. Overwhelmed with shame, he asks to be given the teaching instead, and Enō responds, “Without thinking good or evil, in this very moment, what is your Original Face?”
- Clark Strand
I’ve just finished reading Ruth Ozeki’s ‘Timecode of a face’1 and the inspiration for this workshop comes from her. She’s a Zen Buddhist, a meditator and writer, and one day she decided to embark on a 3 hour meditation on her own face. Would she discover her original face? She sits down in front of the mirror and just looks. She looks for three hours, ‘Timecode of a face’ is the account of what happens.
This workshop doesn’t have to take 3 hours! It’s divided into 2 parts, a mirror meditation on our own face, then a drawing meditation, really one merges into the other.
Let’s get started!