Love Comes in Doodles?
HELEN MURPHY & NICK PELLING investigate doodle dating.
As we all know, going on a real person-to-person ‘date’ is full of potential embarrassment and enough social awkwardness to turn otherwise mature people into cringing, stumbling beings who have lost the power of intelligent speech. Hastings Art School, however, has hit upon a new way to ease the pain and even have a lot of fun. Their genius idea is doodle-based speed-dating.
To get a little more clarity we spoke to the Director of Hastings Art School, Julia Kotziamani. She was quite frank with us: “Sometimes art can take itself really seriously, second only perhaps to dating! We want to create an upbeat, relaxed environment where you can meet new people and engage in a silly creative activity. Drawing can be a great way to break the ice and connect in a lighthearted way.”
MY SILLY VALENTINE
So, what, in practice, are we talking about here? It seems that those that go along to what is described as “a fun and flirty event” will be given drawing paper and pencils or charcoal and randomly sat down opposite another ‘date’. There will then follow a two-minute drawing session based around silly prompts. “Silly” seems to be one of Julia’s favourite words and that sort of approach certainly takes a lot of the tensions out of any encounter.
The prompts are along these lines: “draw your date as an animal” or “draw your date made only of squares or triangles”. You can imagine that this sort of thing will probably lead to some hilarity. The situation might be a little more controversial with the prompt,”exaggerate your date’s best feature”. This instruction is potentially a bit upsetting, in an unintentional sort of way, but maybe not. Maybe it’s an opportunity to flatter. To rephrase Richard Hell and the Voidoids, perhaps “love comes in doodles”. After the two minutes of drawing, there is an opportunity for the two ‘dates’ to discuss each other’s likely weird drawings.
Because it is speed-dating, each moment of artistic intimacy is quickly over. Beer and snacks are provided – along with non-alcoholic alternatives – so it’s probable that even the most bizarre drawings will generate a laugh. It should be added that you do not have to be any kind of artist in order to participate. In the world of doodle-dating there are no art critics or pompous lecturers.
DOODLERS JUST WANT TO HAVE FUN
All of the sketchy lovers are free to do what they want with their drawings: take them home, throw them in the bin or give them to someone who caught their eye, perhaps. Julia was very clear that all the school can guarantee is possible “new friends and fun”. Anything else is “up to you”.
Hastings Art School describes itself as an “alternative to a traditional art school model”. One of its primary aims is to help local artists. They run a 30-week, 3-term programme designed to help people develop skills and challenge themselves. There are no specific entry requirements and the fees are defined loosely as “accessible”.
The school is obviously very serious about its mission, but the doodle-dating is surely a wonderful gift to would-be lovers and scribblers everywhere. I think it was the venerable old Jazz philosopher, Humphrey Lyttelton who said,”we should never lose sight of silly”. What Julia and the school have come up with is, to our way of thinking, a veritable triumph of silly, with added love hearts.
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