Drawings, 1993 - Hengst Studio

“Landscapes”

Ink/paper

Various sizes, approximately 8.5″ x 11″

1993

By 1993 I was 32 years old. In the lives of some of my art heroes I should have been nearing my mid career. The superheroes had already done their most famous works and some were already dead. Michelangelo had already completed his “David.” Picasso had painted the “Demoiselles D’Avignon.” And Egon Sheile had died at the age of 29 in the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic. And if we really want to go off the charts on comparisons, I was less than a year from Jesus Christ himself and his famous final act. Or was it?

Well, those kind of comparisons can be hard on the soul and bad for creativity. But for some reason there are moments in a person’s life where we tend to do that more than at others. And since I have always been a late bloomer I was doing my year 30 year performance evaluation at year 32.

Even though I had not yet carved a 17’ block of marble into the most famous sculpture in the world, made the most famous painting of the 20th century or died for my art and then rose from the dead, I was pretty sure I was onto something. Moreover, I felt like the years I had spent in China rounding out my grounding in Western culture was useful….very useful….but had nevertheless set me behind a bit. And the result fueled a sense of urgency that was backed by youth and an essentially stable world.

The next few years resulted in an explosion of quantity and variety of drawings, paintings and ideas. 1993 and 1994 in particular were the years where I many of my ideas about art that I had been wrestling with came together in succinct styles that functioned like languages complete with their own vocabularies. These “languages” would develop and coalesce over the next few years achieving among other things that most elusive of goals for the young artist: finding one’s own voice.

In this little ink drawing/painting I have integrated my love of Western landscape painting with Traditional Chinese ink painting which also often features the landscape. Looking back from the perspective of 30 more years of work, it’s interesting that I didn’t stop here. After all, this is an attractive little synthesis of cultures and styles. And I even enjoyed making drawings and paintings this way. But before long I pushed right past this to something more innovative and ultimately more satisfying.

Around this same time I taught a print making class at Seattle University. After the students left for the day I used the leftover ink and tools to make my own art. In this process I discovered the creative possibilities of using rollers to make marks and to lay down skins of color. This combination of materials and techniques combined with my grounding in Eastern and Western landscape tradition was the perfect storm for a real breakthrough.

I started calling these new drawings “roller paintings” because I used rollers to make many of the marks. To some people they look like prints. But at the risk of being pedantic, they are not, strictly speaking “prints” because they are not created by pressing anything through a printing press.

They could be called paintings. And I can’t argue with that. However, I think of them as drawings because they are small, spontaneous, and very intimate. These are all hallmarks of my drawings. To learn more about my roller paintings please see those sections of my website. Eventually this way of working would grow to become a major part of my studio practice and output. But I am certain I could not have “seen” my way to this way of working had I not first successfully integrated these 2 behemoth cultures in my considerable and lengthy wanderings and experiments throughout my 20’s.

“An Encounter” 2 versions
11” x 8.5”
Ink and acrylic on paper
1993

“Prometheus’ Flame”
Ink on paper
11” x 8.5”
1993

“Prometheus Bound”

Ink/paper

11” 8.5”

1993

“Landscape With Smudge”

Ink/paper

8.5″ x 11”

1993

This piece was the beginning of 30 years and still going of endless variations. As I have written in other drawings on this same page, 1993 was the year of many mechanical and intellectual experiments. This piece was created with an ink brayer and a rag. The part below was done with a brayer and conveys a landscape unto itself. The smudge above it suggests a cloud or puff of air pollution in a related but different dimension the way “space” collides or overlaps in our dreams or theoretical physics. This combination of spatial realities in a relaxed visual vocabulary was the breakthrough that I would fiddle with for the next 30 years.

“Visions in Blobs”

Ink/paper

11” x 8.5”

1993

“Sigil”

Ink/paper

8.5″ x 11”

1993

Sigils are personal symbols that function in a sense like visual incantations. They are meant to do more than just remind. They are intended to conjure.

This is a sigil. And it is done in the style of a Japanese Zen monk who would use ink and brush and paper as part of daily meditation. Making an Enzo was not so much about making a work of art as about meditating.

The same was true for me here in the creation of this piece and many like it. I don’t remember what this sigil was about. But it doesn’t matter. I liked it then and I still like it now which is why it’s on the website.

Sometimes I do a bunch of these and just leave them scattered on the floor of my studio. They get walked on and slowly destroyed. However, I also see them in a very informal way and they end up inspiring my work and sometimes even inspire a specific mark in an abstract piece that can be just the right touch to move a piece along or bring it to completion. Earlier in my career I would pin them to the wall in nice neat rows. That was nice. But I find they have more power when they are scattered on the floor like autumn leaves. And just like autumn leaves, there comes a time when you just need to sweep them up and throw them in the compost bin.

“Mythric Eye”
Ink/paper
11” x 8.5”
1993

“Woman”

Ink/paper

11” x8.5”

1993

“Yantra Anatomy”

Ink/paper

8.5″ x 11”

1993

This piece was a dead end. Like some of the other pieces on this page of the website it was an attempt to bring together the calligraphic energy of Eastern painting with landscape painting in a more Western sense. Well, it never went anywhere for me. Perhaps I was jamming too much in here. I was, after all, trying to include the symbolism of subcontinental Indian yantra tradition as well as the Kabbala of Jewish mysticism. Whatever the case, this piece and paintings I did like it around this time were the end game of things I had been working on since 1988 or so. Moreover, it didn’t contribute towards my art since then, at least not in ways I can see from this vantage point.

Perhaps in a few years I will be drawing inspiration from these works after all. It’s surprising what comes around in the creative process. There are often surprise returns, flat out reruns and recurring themes. Who knows, there may yet still be more to say or explore here.

Ink/paper

8.5″ x 11”

1993

“I Covered A Lot of Ground Today”
Solvents/ink/paper
8.5″ x 11”
1993

“Woman Under the Black Hills”
Oil and solvents on paper
11” x “8.5”
1993

“Weird Face in Ash Rubbing”
Ash rubbing and graphite
11” x 8.5”
1993

“Painted Photo”
Oil on Photo
10” x 12”
1993

“Portraits of Women”
Pencil/paper
8.5″ x 11”
1993

1993 was a year of intense experimentation. I was inventing and combining styles in new ways almost every week during that year. Nevertheless, I returned periodically to draw directly from “life” for various reasons. I always felt that my drawings of friends captured more of the essence of someone than a photo. Maybe it was because people tended to be very present when being drawn. When being photographed they would pose. But even a fast drawer like me is not nearly as fast as a photograph so whatever “pose” they may have started with usually melts away leaving a more exposed and authentic glimpse of the real person.

The photographs did a better job of of capturing the “moment” or the environment. And maybe that is why I didn’t sketch scenes very often.

I don’t remember who the first woman is or why I drew her. But the second woman was the owner of a tiny art gallery/used furniture store in Seattle’s arty and previously gay neighborhood. She was one of the first people in Seattle to really appreciate my art. She gave me the walls to her gallery many times and even bought some of my paintings. Her name was Karen Evans.

She was kind and generous and truly loved art. She did not have the knowledge and sophistication or money that some of the people I worked with in New York had, but she believed in me and that was more valuable to me then and now than money or prestige.

I sold my first figurative painting in her gallery as well as several of my “Base 10” pieces. Eventually I went on to do a painting inspired by these drawings. But painted over that a few years later.

“Kabbalah”
Pencil/paper
Various sizes, approximately 8.5″ x 11”
1993

Sacred Geometry is the notion that geometric shapes are imbued with a capacity to invoke a spiritual awareness or sense because, as the idea goes, the universe itself is created by a god who in the words of Plato, continuously geometrizes.

Since my undergraduate days at Penn State I had discovered the idea of mystical geometry in many of the world’s religious traditions. In Christianity it is the idea of Lay Lines and the building of the cathedral based on directions given to Solomon that are basically a list of geometric proportions. From Judaism it’s the Kabbalah. Ancient Greece has its teachings of Plato and Pythagorus which among other things suggests that a god or goddess is the mathematic proportions of something, not the material thing itself. From India comes the idea of Yantras with its emphasis on doctrinal shapes that if meditated upon would produce spiritual altered states. From Native American traditions there are sand paintings and “decorative” patterns whose intent was to transform utilitarian objects into sacred objects meant to imbue spirit into “everyday” activities.

I’m grossly over simplifying here but hopefully you get the idea that there was much here for a young man to study and experiment with in these various traditions. When you combine these vast and varied traditions with the freedom about how to approach art making that was there for the taking in the 1980’s you can see why I might have been rather inspired. Throughout these years I tried as many things as I could including copying the Shri Yantra, making lifelike sculptures based on Ancient Greek ideals for correct proportion, studying the works of Rudolf Steiner and Joseph Campbell. I even helped form a group of artists that decided to call ourselves the Visionary Arts Council and was probably among the last group of artists that I know of that formalized themselves into any semblance of a “school of thought.” (But that’s a story for another day.)

By 1993 I was in my early 30’s and now firmly decided that art’s purpose was to invoke the spiritual but not necessarily through sacred geometry. From about this time on you will see recurring aspects of various traditions popping up especially if you know what to look for. These drawings are all based at some level on the Tree of Life or Kabbalah of mystical Judaism.

Pen/ink/paper
Various sizes, approximately 8.5″ x 11”
1993

“Tamaki”
Pen/paper
8.5″ x 11”
1993

Painting below is oil on plywood, measuring 38″ x 40″.

“Herod and Salome”
Various sizes, approximately 8.5″ x 11”
1993

These drawings were inspired by other art and life itself. There is the story in the Bible, of course, of Salome dancing for Herod as he considers what is to be done about Jesus and his band of trouble makers including John the Baptist. And then there is the drawing by Picasso. And there is the music of Bach and his love of playful variations on a theme.

This section of the website includes a sample of these variations on the theme of Salome dancing for Herod. As I look at them now I realize that there is still so much to be expressed here. I have only just begun. First, there is the dynamic of a beautiful woman comporting herself for a powerful man. Is she using her beauty or becoming it? Is she seducing for a purpose of her own design or are they both becoming at one with art and beauty, she through performing and he through observing. Then there is the dynamic between the man in power and the man who has surrendered that power. Who has really lost their head after all?

But furthermore, these variations convey something of the way I think about these issues. I don’t have one great summary thought and then move on. No, I thumb it over again and again. Each time laying over another consideration or emphasizing different aspects of it all so as to get a different perspective on the whole of it. These variations not only communicate many individual glimpses of this, but collectively they convey the broader sweep of how my mind deals with these complex relationships.

I hope to explore this theme much more in the future.

“Moonbather”
Pencil/paper
8.5″ x 11”
1993

“Dolphin in Moon”
Ink/paper
7′ x 4′
1993

“Models Looking at Sculptures”
Pencil/paper
Various sizes, approximately 8.5″ x 11”
1993

“A Friend”
Ink on paper
11” x 8.5”
1993

“Rachel”
Pencil/paper
8.5″ x 11”
1993

Pencil/paper
8.5″ x 11”
1993

“Memento Mori”
Various media
Various sizes, approximately 8.5″ x 11”
1993

“Guitars”
Pencil/pen/paper
Various sizes, approximately 8.5″ x 11”
1993

“Stories I Know Well”
Inspired by poetry by Douglas Newton
Pencil/paper
Various sizes, approximately 8.5″ x 11”
1993

“Horses Mating”
Pencil/paper
8.5″ x 11”
1993

“Biomorpism”
Pencil/paper
Various sizes, approximately 8.5″ x 11”
1993

“Descent From The Cross”
Various Media
Various sizes, approximately 8.5″ x 11”
1993

“Breakup with Tamaki”
Various Media
Various sizes, approximately 8.5″ x 11”
1993

“Still Life”
Pencil/paper
8.5″ x 11”
1993

“Tamaki and Me”
Pencil/paper
8.5″ x 11”
1993

“Guitar and Stump”
Pencil/paper
8.5″ x 11”
1993

“Sri Yantra”
Various Media
Various sizes, approximately 8.5″ x 11”
1993

“Yoni Yantras”
Various media
Various sizes, approximately 8.5″ x 11”
1993

“Jonah + Whale”
Various Media
Various sizes, approximately 8.5″ x 11”
1993

Pencil/paper
Various sizes, approximately 8.5″ x 11”
1993

Pencil/paper
8.5″ x 11”
1993

Ballpoint pen/paper
8.5″ x 11”
1993

Pencil/paper
8.5″ x 11”
1993

Ballpoint pen/paper
Various sizes, approximately 8.5″ x 11”
1993

Pencil/paper
Various sizes, approximately 8.5″ x 11”
1993

Pencil/paper
8.5″ x 11”
1993

Ballpoint pen/paper
8.5″ x 11”
1993

“Base Ten”
Pencil/paper
8.5″ x 11”
1993

Pencil/paper
8.5″ x 11”
1993

Pencil/paper
8.5″ x 11”
1993

Pencil/paper
Various sizes, approximately 8.5″ x 11”
1993

Pencil/paper
8.5″ x 11”
1993

Pencil/Paper
8.5″ x 11”
1993

Pencil/paper
8.5″ x 11”
1993

My Grandma was a racist. I mean she was a plain ole fashioned nearly unabashed racist. The kind that made me pretty sure, until recently, I’m not a racist. But before getting into my Grandma’s story and how I ended up doing these drawings of her and her nurse I would like to linger for a moment on the “nearly unabashed” part.

Some of my early memories of my Grandma were sitting in the back seat of her fancy Buick as we drove past her childhood homestead in downtown Harrisburg. It was a neighborhood just across a rail yard of Pennsylvania’s magnificent capitol building. And the neighborhood where Grandma grew up, rows of stately turn of the century brownstone mansions, was now a ghetto. What I didn’t know was that the combination of post war steel industry flight to Japan, the exodus of Black people out of the South and the white flight of middle and upper middle class white people to the suburbs where large social and economic forces that caused her old neighborhood to fall into decay.

My memories were informed by her bitter remarks about how Black people ruined her neighborhood. But those memories are often informed by her saying it with a restrained hush even in the privacy of her car, as though she knew there was something not right about it. If my mother, my Grandmother’s daughter, was in the car, she would say something to counter Grandmother and then say something over the backseat to us kids that Black people were no different than us and that Grandma was just bitter because her old neighborhood had fallen into decay. She told us it wasn’t because the people were Black. It was because they were poor and didn’t know how to take care of houses.

Well, she tried.

Another key memory of my Grandmother came many years later when my younger sister brought her first college sweetheart home for Thanksgiving. Scott. A Black boy a year older than my sister. I was seated at the table with my girlfriend. Lisa. A Chinese American. Things were tense and at some point my Grandmother blurted out something harsh about Scott being Black and my sister confronted her. My Grandmother raised the bar shouting that if my sister did not break it off with Scott she would cut her out of her inheritance. Michele promptly shouted back that Grandma could take her inheritance and shove it up her ass and stormed off with Scott.

Well, years later my Grandmother contracted cancer and began a long slow decline. Eventually she needed to have 24 hour care in her home. She needed someone to help her keep the house clean, prepare meals, make sure she was taking her medication and so on. When we interviewed for the position we felt the best candidate was Ellen, a Black woman.

My mother decided to assume the best of her mother and hired Ellen. Initially my Grandmother was flinty towards Ellen but quickly warmed up to her. As time went on they actually became very close and I would say even developed a friendship. My last memory of my Grandmother was a scene where I went to visit her on a return from having been oversees. I sat in her living room alone, waiting for her to gather herself for my visit. Eventually Ellen came out carrying my Grandmother in her arms. She had shriveled to what looked like a thin 80lbs or so. Ellen easily maneuvered her onto the couch and they sat beside each other for most of my visit.

When I see these drawings now I think about my Grandmother struggling not just with her racism but with her religious ideologies that admonished her to not create scapegoats as a vehicle for assuaging guilt and bitterness. But instead to look deeper into herself and let go of her “reasons” for being bitter. I don’t think my Grandmother figured anything out. I think she just gave in to the genuine connection with Ellen and simply let go of her bitterness. There was no need for a scapegoat because there was no need to blame or to hang on to past possessions because she found something more beautiful in letting go. At least that’s how it looked to me 25 years ago when she passed.

Maybe my Grandmother actually received something she prayed for in Church every Sunday, the grace of god that passes all understanding.

I’m all for “understanding.” I read much more than the average person and have made it part of my persona to be an informed person and compassionate learner. But there are times and situations that may not ever be able to be unraveled, no how much learning and thoughtful compromise there may be. Maybe racism or it’s deeper routed relative, raw fear and the urge for a scapegoat, are best overcome by the grace of god or what I prefer to call surrendering to an awareness of what is and a release of attachment to what isn’t.