This sketch book is larger than most and has fewer pages. Like almost all of my sketch books, it was filled with drawings I do in public spaces. I often sit in cafes or parks where I can watch people and reflect on my impressions and experiences. These drawings are like a diary of thoughts and impressions of what I see and what I am experiencing. Usually I draw on a vocabulary for expressing these things and at the same time I am often adding to that repertoire.
In this set of drawings I use some familiar tropes of fat elder men ogling or being involved with a voluptuous female who is sometimes a naturalistic figure and sometimes she is abstracted and maybe a sculpture or painting. The male figure may also be abstracted or only defined as a shadow of the female figure. There are also a sprinkling of dollar signs which introduces a host of other ideas about their relationships.
In this book I introduce the character of the street beggar. This is new. And already he … she … they are interacting with some of my familiar characters.
I won’t tell you what these drawings mean because I myself don’t know. But even if I did, I wouldn’t. The true joy of viewing them is seeing the ideas play peekaboo with you consciousness. You may see something that makes you think it’s this…or that. But is it really clear? Could it also be something else? They invite an aphoristic intelligence rather than the didactic one more suitable to a world of artificial intelligence. These sketches are a place where you are invited to ponder and hold more than one idea about meaning at the same time. They are meant to spark imagination, not conclude it.
I hope they work that way for you and I hope you enjoy that process.
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