It’s been a great year, having a billboard image to reach the thousands of people passing each day with a positive message. Sadly all good things must end, and so this will be coming down soon. But many thanks to:
@artpopstreetgallery @artscouncilwsfc @lamaradvertisingcompany @adamsoutddoor @associatedposters
These drawings are made mostly using a variety of artist-made or found vintage inks. The handmade inks include oak gall, walnut, and acorn-iron, hand picked and rendered from the artist’s farm, as well as studio-made copper oxide and titanium white. The vintage inks are mid-20th century, and have been rescued from our farm storage outbuildings.
The series began early in 2021 as a practice of drawing a hand a day. As in a net sport like volleyball or badminton, the intent has been to keep the thing in the air for as long as possible. So far, it’s been nearly two months. These are the best examples.
These quick drawings use vintage sumi ink and brush.
The drawings above use a combination of vintage fountain pen ink, hand foraged walnut ink, copper oxide, and tea.
The drawings above use sumi or walnut ink, and crosshatching.
These are made with tea.
(Oak gall ink wash and titanium white, 11″x 14″, 2021)
Vintage fountain pen ink. Foraged acorn ink with brush and dip pen.
It is with real pleasure that I announce the inclusion of my work in this year’s Arts Council Winston-Salem, ArtPop2020 Billboard Competition. Big shout-out to Lamar and Adams advertising, for sponsoring this opportunity for local artists to reach the broad general public. Big shout-out to ArtPop2020 and the Arts Council for making this a reality. The project has been receiving very favorable coverage from the Winston-Salem Journal, so thank you all for that as well!
July 23, 2020 – https://journalnow.com/opinion/editorials/our-view-drive-in-art/article_af8a3889-c28e-59b4-b8b5-66bcf23926f2.html
In the 1990’s, I was spending a lot of time in the studio making art about being on the road, developing images that reflected the alienation of life behind the wheel.
The work that emerged was a series of drawings and paintings about the highway, and what it means to feel as if you’re sitting still while traveling forward at 70 miles an hour. Mostly it was a flatness that I found pervasive, in mood, in emotion, which I addressed in parallel-to-picture plane or one point perspective compositions.
It was a response to what I understood to be a disconnect between the presumed natural world tied to notions of traditional landscape, and what I was witnessing before me, a technologically contrived wasteland for which there was only one escape, forward behind glass, behind the wheel.
I’m not sure if there are any conclusions to be drawn between these older pieces and the fact that a drawing I created actually made it onto one of these advertising devices, but I think there is something there.
Can an image designed with the fostering of human relationships in mind use the apparatus of alienation to reach its goal?
New drawing I just finished for the Arts Council of Winston-Salem’s ArtPop2020 billboard competition. Watercolor and colored pencil on cotton rag paper, 24.33″ x 6.33″, June 21, 2020.
For the past several weeks, in February and March of 2020, I had been working on a large scale panoramic drawing of “Athena Entrusting the Phrygian Cap to the Next Generation”. This was to be in honor of Women’s History Month. I expect it will stay up for several months in its current form, as the studio is practicing “social distancing” until the pandemic subsides. With any luck, I’ll get to work on it some more before too long.
Working from home in the meantime. Keep safe, everyone. Look out for one another and make something good while you’re sheltering.
On the back wall of the studio, a scroll with the Declaration of Sentiments from the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848.
