When is a drawing not a drawing?

In Red Hook over the weekend, I saw a drawing show at the Kentler Gallery, www.kentlergallery.org. Way cool and inspiring.
Now I've got this idea, again, to create some of my drawings in fiber. Tapestry? Maybe. Or sculpture with thread. Or dyed, twisted and tied fabric.
Hmmm. This could solve my 'go big or go home' issue.

Side dishes

Thanksgiving in rural Mississippi. These were worked in Miss Betty's kitchen during the second and third football games I endured (The Packers won the game I actually watched). I'll be contemplating going bck into these during the week.

Water images

Beached? Disemboweled? Laying eggs in the sand? Or merely sleeping.
It's Memorial Day and I worked on this drawing while we were up on the York River on friends' boat. Perfect perfect blue sky summer weather.

Small wonder

Sometimes the simplest, quickest drawings offer more than one that's planned and possibly overworked. Gesture, balance and tension... humor and even humanness. Thoughtful, bound and maybe even powerless. Teetering on the edge of that one last leap of faith.

Party party

Okay, big party at our house yesterday. I did not clean up and I did not blog last night... but here I am now and I've pretty much got all the brownie crumbs dug out of the carpet.
Here's another portrait of I-still-don't-know-what-it-is. This one seems more of a cartoon. I'll be drawing later in the day and blogging again when I get home from work tonight. Ciao for now.

What in the world ...

... is this? Hal found it in the yard as he was raking up. Tuber, last season's apple, alien pod? (If it hatches, we're probably in trouble.) We're mystified. I guess that's why I'm so enamored of it. I have some other drawings I'll post later. It has enough character that I think I might work with it as a model. Like gestures, 30 seconds, 4 minutes and 1 hour sittings.

Pondering Agnes Martin

Back in March I spent some time at the Milwaukee Art Museum, specifically standing in front of this painting by Agnes for quite a while. I would have spent the whole day...
It's like she said, reminding me of perfection.
Today I've been thinking about the way she lived her life: solitary, always working, or preparing herself to work. I don't know how to commit like that without sacrificing, as she did, people, community, responsibility and wholeness. Things that are important too.
And these other important things distract me. Today I didn't draw at all.

I'm having trouble uploading my image... will try again tomorrow. Good night.

Just drawing and ...

... not thinking too much about it. Like Zen, it is "nothing special."

The last days of March

I'm puzzling ...

... over words to write about this drawing. But so far I haven't come up with any. I find it interesting when language doesn't fit. Like I'm on the edge of figuring out something, or feeling something I don't know. Try these on:
Abjection
Attraction
Ersatz
Nouvelle vague

Pope with turtle

Some days I struggle with what to draw. Well, every day. And then I'll be wondering why I get so serious about drawing... so today I'm toying with the idea of meaningless, even foolish, imagery. Maybe humor. The meaning must be found in the human activity of drawing. In repetition. In the ritual of it.
Am I a step closer to integrating interior and exterior worlds on paper?
Looking back over drawings of the past few days, I seem to be all over the map. I try to practice patience, pretend I'm Agnes Martin.

Just drawing...

... and not thinking too much about it. I've been working from inside lately. It all cries for balance with the exterior, physical world. Today was a really warm sunny beach day and I worked outside, noticing the black birds screeching from the light poles and the traffic screaming by on the bridge. I need to make drawings more inclusive of my experience. Stay tuned.

Sea animals

A fin whale was found dead in the harbor in Norfolk today. It was hit by a ship and seems it was dragged into the river from the sea. Fin whales are huge (this female was 45 feet long), second in size only to the blue whale. Pictures for the newspaper page I designed tonight are beautiful, heartbreaking. I think about who lives in the waters around here. Why do whales beach themselves to die? Why do we torment, confuse and kill them with sonar, sea litter, sewage and fishing nets? In the summer when I lie in the Bay water, I can hear the dolphins calling to each other as they swim upstream to feed, clicking and cawing. Often, they leap and play – a gift for the early morning or late afternoon observer.
A lot of my imagery comes from the beach and the water. Found objects from the sand or imagined creatures floating simply, buoyantly in salt water. Easy.

Milwaukee bontanical gardens

Home sweet home. I love to travel and then I love to come home... I feel so cleansed somehow, as if anything, everything is possible (again).
Spring is here, the air is warm and drawing comes more easily. This is a picture I made in Milwaukee the other day. Influenced by the desert garden room, looking up at tall tall palms, leaves splayed against glass. Cockatiels fluttering and chirping and cawing. Pale sun filters in. Gray sky of the north.