Smalltown Woodshed

For a while now I have been hoping to perpetrate a large—scale drawing or *picture writing in a public space. Clearly I am obsessed with rows: abstract, figurative and everything in between, and I always build grids to hang them on. New York City provides the biggest, most varied grids of all—grids and panels are everywhere.

The chance to draw/apply my images on a monumental scale using limited means (e.g. house paint brushes, rollers and scrapers), would be a departure and a challenge.
I’d also very much like the opportunity to create these forms by cutting out metal, creating woodblock prints, or drawing on and firing tiles—all approaches I long to explore.

The way I build my pictures (or write them) is rarely preplanned. I prefer to approach the surface and simply begin. I believe I am a strong editor of my own work. I’m not interested in offending for the sake of it. However the imagery I employ is open ended and may well be political or contentious and offensive to some. I am trying to hear through, disentangle, the strands and layers of my thinking. We are all constantly being bombarded by ideas, sights and sounds and sorting it all out is a project without end. As I attempt to organize these thoughts I am interested in avoiding the obvious, preferring to lay down forms that take a while to digest. Frequently I end up with somewhat enigmatic signs/forms/symbols. I hope they are open to multiple individual interpretations. I like to believe the forms that insist on returning again and again are particularly potent on an archetypal or universal level, and that a mural built of such forms would instinctively or unconsciously resonate with a wide audience.

This is a scary and exhilarating approach and perpetrating such in the Public realm would require a huge amount of trust on the part of the Public/Space.

*The analogy to writing is appropriate. Here are two reasons why:

1. Just as words like “and” and “the” will appear almost inevitably on a printed page, there are forms in my drawings that are similarly ubiquitous. Certain motifs keep reappearing in the drawings that appear to serve a similar purpose—as bridges between narratives or links in a chain.

2. We all instinctively recoil if the kerning or leading of type on a page is off and I feel the same need to balance the forms on the given page. Page can mean any given surface from theatrical drop cloths to building site hoardings, and tile walls.