drawing nr670
drawing nr670 Kabelvåg 29.05.23
I am very happy in the morning. It may be the coffee. Some dark Swedish stuff called Zoega.
I draw with a fountain pen filled with water. On the nib, I place a drop of ink with a syringe, this time Eldorado by KWZ ink. The pen is a TWSBI vacuum something. It is a big pen, and it is transparent. The nib is an extra fine, but that’s European ef which is not very fine. I am planning on grinding it finer, but I cannot seem to get around to it. Drawing nr670 has 24 layers. So it is made with 24 drops of ink and some water. The paper is Italian. It comes in a plastic bag with 10 big sheets. The format used in drawing nr670 is 1/16 of the big sheet which results in a little less than a5. On the paper, I draw a rectangle, with a pencil, portrait orientation. I started the drawing from the top with a ruler, drawing horizontal lines from the top to the bottom. I forgot to mention that I tape the paper onto a sheet of spruce plywood, a drawing board. The plywood is lacquered in a white wash to help it be durable. Also, the plan is to lacquer it more when it gets dirty. It makes for good patina. After the top-to-bottom drawing I flipped the drawing board and drew bottom to top. Then vertical lines left to right, then right to left. I repeated this process 6 times. I have never done this before, as far as I remember. It may be my favourite drawing.
The peculiar thing with repeating oneself is that action becomes less powerful as it is repeated. Repetition is needed to turn the line into a field. The field, to me, is more interesting than the line however poetic the division is. There is a big difference between the first and second passes of parallel lines, not so much comparing the 23. and the 24. layer. In fact, it is barely visible. It creates an arena though, somewhere where anomalies happen and are allowed to occur, deliberately, by circumstance and by chance. Faint images appear within the field. A presence of sorts, and it is to me sufficient. I appreciate the size. Small, as they were when I started the series some years ago. They interest me as a stream of consciousness. Usually approaching the void, sometimes a sense of crossing. The notion that there is something we do not know. Furthermore, a notion that there is no rational explanation, only a social hierarchical agreement. In the drawings I am only receptive to my mind, there is no obvious content matter. It is the meditation that I do in the morning. Observing the pen move from the past, to the present. What occurs in my mind is not allowed to reach the sheet of paper except for small alterations of the general formal concept of drawing.
I usually have a realisation that I prefer this format when I return to it. It will be interesting to see if I can stick to it. It is a decision, being decisive is not my strength, we will see. The larger drawings usually take at least a week to complete, drawing in the morning. This format can be done in 2 mornings. The want in me is to have many small variations of this theme. It makes for a compact collection, and furthermore a compact gallery. I imagine clusters of these drawings, mounted close to each other. I also want to see lines of drawings mounted in a specific space. These drawings may not be suitable for conventional galleries. Perhaps it is a gesture of cultural politics. A format that suits my temperament.
C
