Anthological

So one of the vague, prickling dissatisfactions of my life the last few years has been the suspicion that since I wasn’t using it, I was losing it. IT in this case being my creativity, my ability to draw, paint, etc. It seems as if the more design I did on the computer, the further I drifted from my roots. That is to say, my tendancy to scribble on test papers or doodle on my penmenship homework (no joke, I took 3 years of penmenship in my formative years, it just didn’t take).

One of a series of revelations discovered over the last year was that duh, this slow leeching away of a portion of my personal identity was reversible. Lo and behold, I started to draw again, and though yes, I sucked beyond all imagining at first, it got better. After a while, my line work was no longer so forced, and my shading became almost natural again. Intuition began to gain a foothold and I was able to lose myself in the moment of creation. It’s a kind of bliss, a union of consious intent and subconcious knowledge. Intuition and creativity and all that jazz.

In college I always wondered what the hell I would do for a theme if I would have chosen to become a fine arts major rather than an illustration major. A theme being the central idea upon which a larger body of work is based. Well, it turns out you just draw, draw, draw, draw, and eventually ideas start to flow. Lots of them. Too many in fact, and thus the problem of what to draw vanishes and the issue of having to edit those ideas comes to bear. MUCH better problem to have, let me tell you. Right now I’m playing around with several. (Ideas that is, get your mind out of the gutter!)

The pieces I’ve been working on all have a framing element. That is to say, a virtual frame, depicted visual elements that frame the main elements of the drawing. So far they’ve taken the form of old, rugged wooden fencing in most cases, at right angles or nearly so, in a variety of values relative to the values against which they are depicted. The frame of a picture in a gallery does so much for its painting. It thrusts it forward into the world, provides it a context in which to be viewed. It says something about the nature of the work, and ideally complements the work but does not distract attention from it. There is a kind of symbiosis between a well chosen frame or mat and the artwork itself, and that’s something I’m trying to use as a device in my own work. If you stand at a window and see the landscape unfold outside, it’s framed by the window. If that window is done up in classic French architecture, it gives the landscape a classic French flavor, if you will. Purposely manipulating the functionality of a frame within the viewport of an image itself allows an additional dynamic that can say something about a piece without having to shout. It’s almost a form of metadata. Information about the image, external to the image but related.

The other consistent element of the work I’m currently engrossed in is the feeling of being the anonmyous viewer, and of that viewer being an integral part of the puzzle, but somehow being an almost illicit viewer. Edward Hopper brings this to bear somewhat, as does Degas in many of his paintings, particularly those in his series of opera and ballet compositions featering the interaction of the box seat observer and the performance, juxtaposed in such a way as to flatten space and magnify the connection between the different parties.

Seeing only part of a whole, seeing a subject from an odd point of view, and seeing subjects that appear to be private, or secret, or part of a rare and magical setting all fit well with the idea of framing inside manmade objects intended to contain or define property or defend the same.

Examples to come as soon as I figure out the best way to scan in oversized work, or get smart enough to draw small enough to scan with my agfa.

I leave you with an image my parents found when going through boxes of stuff in the process of making more room for more stuff. This is my mother and I in one of those ubiquitous photo booths, where I was apparently thinking deep thoughts and off in my own little world. What a surprise, huh?