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There are no people in my drawings, and I hate drawing cars. I have nothing against drawing people though, even when they stand in front of me while I'm working. To their credit, they usually don't see me; they're either waiting for a bus, or to cross the street. Nonetheless, I'm there, sitting on the portable stool that rolls up and fits onto the side of my backpack, watercolor pad on my knees, my box of brushes and ink on the ground next to me. Dogs take notice; the homeless adore me. Have you ever had a homeless man offer to buy you a soda? It's an unusual perk of drawing outside on city streets - even though I don't drink soda, and never have. The downsides are many, San Francisco is a windy city, deceitful and temperamental in its weather, and two hours on Mission street leave you covered in an unidentifiable grit.
I divide my time between drawing and writing, and these drawings have appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, in a strip titled All Over Coffee. All Over Coffee is stories about people, many taking place in cafes. Its characters existing only in the narrative text, accompanied by images as their setting. I use this as an easy answer to why people don't appear in my drawings - but make no excuses for cars. Did I mention how I hate drawing cars? The reason people don't show up in the drawings is because people are not constant. Yes, they are everywhere, all of the time, but not the same people, and never in the same way. The relationship of viewer to site is his emotional response to the tone of that particular place.
No pencils are used in the making of these drawings. Straight to ink. I credit the life these drawings possess, in their lack of depiction of life, to the gestural spontaneity that comes with no sketching, and to the immediacy of ink on paper. A line that appears to be straight, is not, and it is that illusion that makes an image a place.
All drawings are done on site. Photos are often used for light and shadow references, but only after a majority of the drawing is done on site. Photos are an abstraction of what we see; to draw from a photo is to create an abstraction of an abstraction, no matter how representational the product. The perspectives, though sometimes skewed, when translated directly from the eye (rather than lens to eye), bring us one degree closer to the experience.
Drawings as documentation. I can look at any of my drawings and remember the day and how I felt when it was drawn. The emotional recall is that of a smell. The act of drawing demands a focus which aligns me with my surroundings, allowing me to always remember who I was when I made it. If, as humans, we're trying to leave a trace to prove we were here, we must first prove it to ourselves. And to do that, we keep records.
My next body of work will be a series documenting the automobiles of America. |
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