“You’ve got to draw it if you want to see it”: Drawing as an Ethnographic Method

My teacher Linda Schele said those words to me years ago when teaching me about the iconography of ancient Maya sculptures. She’d given me an assignment: to make sense of the carved stone monuments from the ancient site Quirigua, in south-east Guatemala. All I had were photocopies of Alfred Maudsley’s 1880s photographs, and I was having trouble distinguishing meaningful elements from the convoluted Baroque tendrils and curls on these elaborate carvings. I brought my photocopies to her house, and the first thing she did was put one on a light-box, taping a sheet of tracing paper on top, saying, “You’ll never see a thing just staring at it on paper! You’ve got to draw it if you want to see it.” read more...

  • Date

    February 20, 2015

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  • posted by

    Andrew Causey
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    • DateFebruary 19, 2015
    • commentsNo comment
    • posted byAnne
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    • DateFebruary 12, 2015
    • commentsNo comment
    • posted byAnne
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    • DateJanuary 28, 2015
    • commentsNo comment
    • posted byLeah McCurdy
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