Déjà vu
Unless I destroy the drawing first, the drawing is put in storage if I think there might be something to save. After a while, if by rummaging through the reams of rolled up paper, I find it again and I think I might be able to find some hook, I tack it back up on my drawing wall.
Beach was one of those discarded, rolled-up drawings I started in 2021 and whose solution came long after working through the other series. The silhouettes behind the posed figures in front came from The Gatherings series–specifically Throwback. The pastel is taken from the Erasing series. It resolved within two days.
Beach was one of those discarded, rolled-up drawings I started in 2021 and whose solution came long after working through the other series. The silhouettes behind the posed figures in front came from The Gatherings series–specifically Throwback. The pastel is taken from the Erasing series. It resolved within two days.
Beach • 2024 •Charcoal, Pastel, and Oil on Paper • 52 × 60 inches
Throwback • 2022 •Charcoal and Coffee on Paper • 52½ × 60 inches
Toast • 2018 • Charcoal, Colored-Pencil, Pastel and Coffee on Paper • 82 x 94 inches
When I began the Paper Trails series, the original idea behind Book [2009] didn’t work in that visual space but found its setting in Remnants [2012], a drawing in the C series. Again, in Remnants [2012], there is a drawing of a painting on the right hand side that is structured exactly like the drawing Papers [2013], part of the Dreams and Disasters series.
Book • 2009 •Charcoal, Pastel, and Oil on Paper • 52 × 60 inches
Remnants • 2012 • Charcoal and Coffee on Prepared Paper • 52 × 54 inches |
Papers • 2013 • Charcoal, Pastel and Coffee on Prepared Paper • 721 × 83 inches
At some point in the creation of a drawing I must decide that it is complete or not complete, successful, or unsuccessful.
However, even after that seemingly definitive point of judgment, I often find myself returning to these drawings again and again as I recognize concepts reappearing whole or in pieces months, years, or even series later. That these concepts may have been revived from drawings rummaged up from the reams of rolled paper in deep storage equally as much as from a drawing framed on view in the world, has led me to question what it means for a drawing to be ‘successful’ or ‘complete’ in the larger context of my career.
However, even after that seemingly definitive point of judgment, I often find myself returning to these drawings again and again as I recognize concepts reappearing whole or in pieces months, years, or even series later. That these concepts may have been revived from drawings rummaged up from the reams of rolled paper in deep storage equally as much as from a drawing framed on view in the world, has led me to question what it means for a drawing to be ‘successful’ or ‘complete’ in the larger context of my career.