It was Sunday morning, the day after the end of the USk Symposium, when I found myself crying in front of a Sorolla painting.
The painting depicted a baby on a beach, being handed to a loved one holding out a crisp white towel. It didn’t make me feel sad, in fact, the painting gave me an incredibly warm and joyous feeling. The composition was perfect. The brush strokes loose and confident. It wasn’t the painting, it was me. I was exhausted. And like that baby, who was probably equally exhausted from a long day at the beach, I just wanted to cuddle in a warm white towel in the arms of a loved one.
After the previous symposium in Poznań, I had promised myself that I would take this symposium at a much slower pace. That I would listen to my body more, eat healthy food at decent times and rest when I needed to. But would that end up being enough?
My symposium started with a delayed flight to a swelteringly hot Toulouse in France. After grabbing lunch and checking in with my hotel, I managed to do one sketch with someone I bumped into outside of the hub. Apart from the airport sketch, that would also be the only other sketch that I managed to do that day as the rest of the day was filled up with registration and the opening ceremony for the Symposium.
Day two was when the internal conflict started for me. The day started off well with an interesting lecture and the first sketchwalk. But quickly I realised that the packed schedule combined with the incredibly vast sketchwalks was not going to work for me. To give an idea of what I mean by vast sketchwalks: most of the sketchwalks was around 2.5km to 3km, if one wanted to walk from the start to the endpoint along all the suggested sketching spots, while taking the shortest route. Practically it meant that there was no way that one could sketch all the suggested spots - something I have no problem with. But it also meant that should you decide to not sketch the postcard spots, you would find yourself sketching alone. Which is not exactly the idea of attending a symposium. So even though there are plenty of photos online of where huge groups of sketchers sketch together during the symposium, the disclaimer should be that all of these photos were taken at the postcard picturesque sketching spots.
And then there was the heat. Which would also have been fine if the sketchwalks were kept to the cooler parts of the day with enough time for rest over the warmest bits. However it was the opposite.
Thus the dilemma I was faced with: I would have to choose between being with people, sketching, and taking care of myself. I couldn’t do all of it. Add to that that I have extreme F.O.M.O. (fear of missing out) while also being an introvert. (I really enjoy being among people, but I pay the price in the form of exhaustion the following day.)
The internal conflict I was left with just kept on growing.
I decided to skip the “Drink and Draw” sessions since I was already attending the opening and closing ceremony where there was a lot of socialising. But then the next morning I would see all the happy photos of sketchers having a blast at the “Drink and Draw” sessions, and I would second guess my decision to take care of myself by getting in some proper sleep.
I skipped parts of sketchwalks so that I could have some lunch, dinner, or go to the art market. And as my luck would have it I always ended up skipping the apparently best bits of the sketchwalk. (Social media totally sucks at making one feel good about one’s choices, right?)
I skipped one whole sketchwalk to go to the Halle de la Machine, a decision I do not regret one bit, because it ended up being my favourite experience of the whole symposium. You know that feeling when you witness something amazing and the joy builds inside your chest until it just wants to explode out in a magnificence of colourful fireworks?! That’s how I felt witnessing the performances of the artists on those machines.
The last day of the symposium I could already feel the exhaustion starting to creep in. Yet I thought, “What the heck. Let’s just do it all today. It is the last day after all.” I did the lecture; lunch with a random stranger who wasn’t even a sketcher; both sketchwalks; the family photo moment and the closing ceremony. By eleven that night I dragged my complaining body back to the hotel, only to find myself too tired to fall asleep.
And that is how I ended up shedding tears of exhaustion in front of a Sorolla painting the next morning.
As the title states, I have mixed feelings about this last USk symposium. Joy, frustration, exhaustion, kindness, loneliness, comfort, sadness and excitement all came across my path.
There has to be something to learn from this experience. I am still not sure what exactly that is. Maybe next time I will have to skip the whole official schedule of the symposium? Not buy a ticket and just go as one of the thousands of other sketchers that descend on the host city regardless and follow their own sketching rhythm. I’m not sure what the solution is yet. I will have to think about that a bit more.
But with that said - here’s some of my symposium favourites and ‘shout-outs’:
My favourite coffee spot was Mesopotamia Coffee. The owner was incredibly welcoming, the coffee was great and the Hummus Toast delicious. (It was also very well priced.) The hummus was special - made from scratch by the owner’s mother from an old family recipe.
My best lunch was at Café Brûlé. Besides the food being absolutely delicious, I also want to give a special shout out to the kind lady who offered me, a random stranger, a seat at her table when the restaurant didn’t have any seats left. I enjoyed our discussions about books and the city of Toulouse.
My favourite sketching experience was at the Halle de la Machine, sketching the Great Spider while it was moving.
My favourite sketching spot was at Jardin Cartailhac, just around the corner from Basilique Saint-Sernin de Toulouse. A quiet little courtyard garden with the cutest view of some roofs with their chimneys.
Have you attended one of the Urban Sketchers Symposia? Did you have a favourite moment or sketching spot while there?
Thank you for following along with my sketching ups and downs.
May you have a creativity filled week ahead of you!
Until next time,
Nino
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