I started drawing tonight. In the many years I’ve been a painter, I’ve rarely made drawings in the studio. Tonight, I just felt an urge to draw, so I dug out some sheets of watercolour paper I’ve had kicking around for years awaiting this day, and poured a generous splash of India ink into a plastic container and started making marks with ink on paper.
This unusual urge could be because my recent exhibition at Yumart was a culmination of a stream of paintings, some of which I worked on for years. Last winter, I wrestled a large group of them to the mat, and felt a very strong sense of completion. Now there are 8 new white canvases in the studio. They’ve been staring at me. Hey buddy, are you going get to work or what?
My practice has been to always have some paintings on the go, to always have some images in process I can turn my attention to when I hit either a dead-end or a pot of gold. There are in fact a few incomplete canvases tucked away in the studio, but I can’t revive them, at least not right now. Let’s let those tired ideas sleep for a while. Sometime down the road I’ll look at them again.
I have the tiniest thread of a starting point, a motif so simple I can hardly bear it, and that’s it. I don’t want to think too much about these. I mean, drawing is thinking, painting is thinking. I want to go go go, make them up as I go along. Not to worry – it’s only steps from the recycle bin.
It is entirely likely these efforts will never see the light of day. By morning I may have decided this drawing business is folly and give it up. I really don’t know.
27th Street 