Drawing is not restricted to visual recount. When we drop these restrictions, the works become treasures of their own pleasantries. To participate in these pleasantries you must first agree to allow yourself to see, you must agree to look. Consider the following:
Wassily Kandinsky (1866 – 1944) noted that “Drawing instruction is a training towards perception, exact observation and exact presentation not of the outward appearances of an object, but of its constructive elements, its lawful forces-tensions.”
Jeff Geib advocates that “drawing is the most transparent of the arts, unabashedly displaying the history of its own making, more so than any other art object.” Simultaneously, he admits to “having increasingly come to think that such transparently displayed marks only have the status of visible remnants – the remains of a greater effort; a bigger picture. Amounting to more than what can be seen.”
Over the years, I have come to admire and favor including drawings in shows as well as solo exhibitions dedicated to only drawings. As the artist says, they are honest. Too often they are neglected and it is refreshing to see their resurgence in major exhibitions.
About the artist
b. 1958 Lancaster, Pennsylvania
BFA, Millersville University
instructor, Pennsylvania College of Art and Design