GALLERY EXHIBITION

Real, live, transparent drawings will be on display at The Smithy, an art gallery in Cooperstown.  My drawings are part of a larger show with various artists, titled Interior Spaces.

As Janet Erway, Executive Director, explained to me, Transparent Drawings are appropriate for this show given the spatial and architectural theme.  This will be the first time that my transparent drawings will be exhibited.  And I made 4 transparent drawings specifically for this show.

Actually, the exhibition of my drawings is problematic to begin with.  For I do all of my drawings in sketchbooks.  And I do the drawings in sketch books in which the pages are not removable.

Smarter people might say, hummm, maybe the solution is to shift to doing your drawings on individual pieces of watercolor paper.  Or at least do the drawings in sketchbooks in which the pages are removable.  Otherwise, if you want to exhibit or, perish the thought, sell your drawings, you will have to make drawings specifically for this purpose.

This whole self inflicted inherently contradictory conundrum is not as easily solved as one would think.  My greatest concern is that if I start to draw on individual pieces of paper, my whole approach might change.  All I know is that when I draw in my sketchbook, when I am done with the drawing, I simply close the book.

And the next time that I really look at the drawing is on a computer screen, after I have scanned the drawing upon completion of the sketchbook.  So I am looking at the scanned drawing when I am trying to find one which goes with the topic of my post.  Not that all of my drawings are completely pertinent to the topic at hand.

Still, I try to find one that is sympathetic.  And as I am searching, I am scrolling thru my drawings.  So in many ways, I see my drawing for the first time way after I did the drawing.

After I do a drawing, I pretty much forget completely about it.  In fact, I am almost scared to page back thru a sketchbook, as I simply don’t want to trigger any sort of aesthetic evaluation.

After all, Transparent Drawings are not art, as has been said in multiple pages.  When I did the drawings for The Smithy exhibition, the little voice in my head kept asking, even though I asked it not to, will this drawing be good enough to be put on a gallery wall?  And when the little voice in your head asks that when you are drawing, then there is a total 180 degree out of phase shift.

And yes, my drawing was included on the promotional flyer.  It is one from the series, Smells Like Malic Moulds.

So with that confessional out of the way, consider stopping by The Smithy.