Lots and lots of Sketching
Changed Everything
If art has has as one of its unstated objects the connection with the other I try to connect with others by drawing them. I am trying to bridge the isolation I live in. I am the only child drawing a community of people. Balzac said solitude is fine but you need someone to tell that solitude is fine. Which is to say one hand clapping is okay until you want applause. I use the image of strangers to turn them into companions for myself and anyone else. After all, the unstated question when we look at the image of the other is what do I have in common with you. Maybe nothing but just posing the question is worth the price of admission.
I started painting and drawing because I was unable to write.
I developed an impediment, a writer’s block. It came out of nowhere. I started falling asleep each time I tried to write. Instead of just trying to fight the block I thought, maybe I could fool the brain by trying another means of expression. Draw instead of write. But that was easier said than done.
I didn’t know how to draw and I wasn’t born with the drawing gene I thought you needed. Then I read a book that changed everything. Drawing on the Right side of the Brain. The book showed me through various exercises that anyone could learn how to do draw. That drawing was a language, no different than Spanish or French. If I learned the alphabet of drawing, perspective, shading, line. If I practiced a lot and learned how to see I could learn how to draw. I started carrying a little book with me everywhere I went. I filled dozens of those books with sketches. I worked every day to deepen my drawing vocabulary. These books became little records of my life, almost like a visual diary. Drawing of my kids, my travels. People on subways, lawyers in court, everyone and everything. That’s how it started and so it goes.