In the Round

Looking Glass

As I make initial preparations for a new suite of drawings for an upcoming show in the early spring, I find myself contemplating a circular format. I made this piece today as a way to get my feet wet, so to speak. And I started making a list of things that are round....writing them down in my sketchbook as they came to mind. Coins, the sun and moon, the earth, spirals, buttons, spools, wheels are all round...or circular...or spherical, I suppose. Since I am thinking in two dimension (drawing on paper), I think of all these things merely as round. Then there is "circle" or "round" as a metaphor, which called to mind the cycle of the seasons, mirrors, magnifying and looking glasses. Somehow I stopped there....at the notion of the "looking glass."

I thought about the notion of the lens and how we are continually seeing the world through the lens of our own experience and physicality. And too, there are magnifiers, microscopes and telescopes to extend our vision, to see the far reaches of the cosmos....the infinitely far away, in time and in space, as well as the infinitesimally small. We continue to learn about the vastness of the microscopic world and the interconnectedness of the roots of trees and plants, the microorganisms that dwell there....seemingly infinite worlds reside in a speck of dirt...or of dust and somehow these worlds seem to mirror or echo what we see in the larger cosmos. Or maybe they form a kind of circle. I think there is something worth exploring in a new group of drawings....in the round.

Like much of the country suffering from frigid temperatures, we've been plunged into the winter season and are finding the cold a bit of a shock. Already there is ice flowing down the Missouri River and I suspect soon it will appear more like a solid sheet of ice. In the last 9 years, I don't recall the river has actually really frozen, as there are always some channels open, but there is a definite frozen quality to the surface that makes you feel as if you could walk across to Nebraska on the other side. A little snow on Friday served up the gentle reminder of the coming months.

December 12, 2016

I'll leave you with today's daily drawing....hope it brings a note of cheer! Enjoy the rest of your week...hope it is full of inspiration and joy.

On Drawing: Food for Thought

"Drawing can be a potent problem-solving aid for both children and adults. A drawing can let you see how you feel. Putting that another way, the right brain, by means of a drawing, can show the left brain what the trouble is. The left brain, in turn, can use its own powerful skills--language and logical thought--to solve the problem."  -- Betty Edwards, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain

December 2, 2016

"The scribbling of any....child clearly indicate how thoroughly immersed he is in the sensation of moving his hand and crayon aimlessly over a surface, depositing a line in his path. There must be some quantity of magic in this alone." 

-- Edward Hill, The Language of Drawing

December 3, 2016

"The object, which is back of every true work of art, is the attainment of a state of being, a state of high functioning, a more than ordinary moment of existence...We make our discoveries while in the state because then we are clear-sighted." 

-- Robert Henri, The Art Spirit

December 4, 2016

"To be shaken out of the ruts of ordinary perception, to be shown for a few timeless hours the outer and the inner world, not as they appear to an animal obsessed with words and notions, but as they are apprehended, directly and unconditionally, by Mind at Large--this is an experience of inestimable value to everyone." 

-- Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception