The third in this series finally marks a feeling of familiarity with the drawing spindle. With this tool, greater proficiency comes with a need to mindfully let go of rigid rules, to find a way to coax a specific line and tether a delicate drawing without binding it.
Two waited a long time. Month after month passed as small studio experiments joined its side on the daylit wall. The place of open air contemplation ever shifted as wisps of graphite, paper, mylar, and silk came and went, all except for this white rectangle with the quiet buzz in its middle.
The barest hint of spring brought it through my hands again, this time to completion and followed swiftly by its sister.
The long incubation period makes all the more appropriate the final form held within holds the ending of division or beginnings of connection.
an inheritance of moldy books,
gifted to the flames
crackle and peel or fly on hot currents.
leaves rustle above and scatter below.
Already the end of the first month, I only just seem to be catching on to the new year of double 1s. Lots of things are floating in the air ready to be plucked and experienced and I couldn't be more excited about the year to come. There's always more to be said and more to show and I'm always relieved to see and hear from my blogger friends. What will we make this year? What will we gather close and nurture or burn and bury?
The third and most recent manifestation of my spindle drawing proves to me that abstraction can be tricky in numbers. When two or more abstractions sit together, they reach towards one another like curious infants, grasping strands of similarities and examining differences. The search for meaning springs from their nebulous forms and slowly those likenesses and differences fold in upon themselves, gathering complexity. Soon they are babbling.
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| Traces of Spun #3 (in progress) graphite on paper, 22 x 30" |
I resist the easy, stop to stare, to peek through the veil of possibilities, then work again, each step progressing the forms and progressively slower.
Careful, there is no return to a simpler state.
Spinning,
printing,
fixing
and layering
Portions of this week went to my Brooklyn Art Library sketchbook. The entire book itself sketches out one of the books/collections of drawings that have been haunting me,
and now made solid
Wisps of thought solidify and blur out again,
Layered galaxies,
extracted DNA strands,
microorganisms writhing, swimming in a sea of white,
more
more
more
linear wanderings on birch ply
to be recorded on rice paper and then if all goes well
fly(call to artists)
relief printing has been far from my fingers for quite awhile,
and some things only return once in the midst of process
while new things are learned with a new medium.
linoleum, far more familiar, cuts smooth and washes clean with soap and water, while wood benefits from the brush of sandpaper to sooth rough edges and a soft brayer rolls ink into minor divots and grain more readily than the hard.
prints will come soon, but for now each step steadily follows the last.
achingly clean clear edges
a small monolith of captured string
loop upon loop
entangled and preserved
closer still
little sprigs of fiber sprout off in directions of their own
with puffs of black graphite dotting the inner facets
and see the shadows
inset in a graphite base
buffed silver black.
A couple of days ago this work returned home from Gallery 817. The collection of work in the show felt quite strong and associating this small series with other work refreshed my thoughts and got my mind churning in new directions.
Now that they are up on the wall at home again I find myself orienting my body in their direction just to gaze at them in the brief pauses between tasks. Following the sinuous paths brings me to the many moments throughout my life where I've paused at the edge of darkened pools to stare into the ever patterned ripples of water or studied raindrops streaking down a window. If given the freedom of time, I will sit for hours, mesmerized, watching for the perfect repeat and never quite able to grasp them.
In many ways this collection excites the same feeling even as it satiates it. An obsessive gaze is finally allowed to rest on preserved individuals for contemplative study. Here are only fifteen, but many more await capture.
Threads drawn by machine and threads drawn by hands imprinted on paper with graphite. The ambiguity of whether these are prints or drawings pleases me.
