The Art of the Diagram: Orderly Universes

The diagram as a representation of experience or fantasy is a powerful artistic tool. What makes these diagrams so compelling?

Many of the artistic diagrams of the past spoke with authority:

The Buddhist monk slowly taps a small metal cone, releasing a steady stream of colored sand. Slowly, painfully, a bright mandala takes shape.

Dante dreams a whole universe of closing and opening spirals, leading him through hell, purgatory, and heaven.

A professor at the Bauhaus explores the relationship of one color to another, describing his findings in elaborately interwoven circles, describing a perfect sphere of color.

An English artist describes the vast network of influences on his work in a tangled web of inter-related themes.

In our own fractured time, our diagrams are apt to be more open-ended, like the enigmatic circles of stone created by Richard Long.

In this workshop, we explore making our own diagrams. Drawing from historical examples, we see how we can create artist’s diagrams for own day.

We use collage, assemblage, paint, ink and paper to make our own orderly—or disorderly—universes take shape.