Friday, March 21, 2008

In The Beginning


Starting a blog was my only goal for 2008 which is nice because I won't have to do anything for the rest of the year! My intentions for having a blog can be best summed up by the artist Henri Matisse who once said, "The artist has but one idea. He is born with it and spends a lifetime developing it and making it breathe...and I move along the course of the picture's creation, pushed by an idea that I come to know only gradually as it develops." I have always hung on to that quote because I feel like it really illustrates the way I feel about my work. In me, there is this constant hunger to create something and all of my sketches, drawings and paintings feel like attempts at capturing what exactly that 'something' is. Anyway, I just thought a blog would be a great way to keep me developing my personal work and sort of record the evolution in the process. I sort of feel like Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams trying to figure out what I am supposed to build and I imagine you looking at my work with the same confused looks his neighbors displayed when he started mowing down his corn field.



These are a few pages from my sketchbook that show my "style of the month." The contrast between tight/refined drawing and a loose uncontrolled line really interests me. I enjoy the thrill of potentially destroying a drawing in an attempt to infuse life into it.