My son M and his family sent me a beautiful little eight year old schefflera bonzai tree that arrived today. The tree is actually a miniature grove of trees, with intricately articulated trunks and the history of careful pruning in evidence.
After removing it from its elaborate packaging and setting it up in a sunny window, I grabbed a pen and sat down to get to know it. The best way for me to explore something is to draw it, so as I looked and looked I dragged my pen along the page. The drawings are really just a record, like the furrow in the field behind a plow pulled by draft horses, a furrow on the page made by my drafting hand, marking where my eyes have been.
I realize drawing means different things to different people. To me the process is more important than the tracing left behind, the drawing. The ten thousand drawings project is about ten thousand explorations of the visual world. That's why carving (or printing a carved block) and pen drawing are both forms of drawing -- to me.
And in that furrow planted are the seeds of beautiful things to come. Well done. I am going to miss your plantings, I mean furrows, when you get to 10,000.
ReplyDeletethanks! i may just keep going.
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