Working with graphite and erasers on various cotton-rich papers to engage in a dialogue to develop — or discover — an image has been the refuge of my working method for many years.

So in 2016, after some difficulty in completing several paintings because I couldn’t tell — or wouldn’t accept — where they wanted to go in the discussion, I decided to go back to graphite and erasers to plumb — to manifest, to bring into being — what image was pressing, pushing, to form in my work.

I have been pleased to discover and inhabit many pathways … actually, let’s say organizing principles  … in developing these drawings. That process is a dialogue; it is to engage the work as if the work itself is both me and another.

More importantly — and perhaps not surprisingly — these drawings have strong links to  past explorations that  are not displayed here.

But given the gestural nature of my markmaking at the start of almost every piece I develop, I have to conclude that my gestural vocabulary, at least at the scale at which I am working, is essentially finite.

My markmaking vocabulary is limited.

This could be a crushing realization.

So the challenges for me are 1) to develop new marks or gestures as memes from which new work, and therefore new discoveries and new knowledge, may be developed; and 2) to move away from the gestural beginnings to develop and refine a more deliberate visual language from such memes in order to further develop the sub-verbal knowledge that underlies my work. (October 7, 2016) (October 26, 2021)

“Drawn Out”–A Gallery of drawings, 2015-2017