an update

I've been traveling and unable to find the time to post to the blog. To those of you who've checked in from time to time during my absence, I apologize. I've ordered stretcher bars and canvas, and they're due to arrive this week. This is going to be the first time I've used canvas for a support, so I've got some experimentation ahead of me. In the next posts I'll try to catch up to where I am, real time, in the process, and explain how I got to my final drawing for the commission. I'll be out of town next week as well without internet access, so please be patient with me.

an assumption

During the time I was thinking about what to do for this commission, I came across this post card I purchased at the National Museum in Prague in 1996. It seemed fortuitous as I hadn't noticed it for years even though it was on a bulletin board in my son's bedroom. It's called The Destna Assumption and was painted in 1450. It's not the one source of reference for my banner drawings but it is in the family of annunciation and assumption paintings transmitting a text message via a twisting and turning banner, that were influential to me. In many ways it represents a form of text messaging much more sophisticated than what today is called text messaging; for example, the text is shown transmitted on a two-sided, spatially complex and varied platform that in some passages causes the text to be illegible.

digression

sketchbook entry, March 30, 2007
For in talking of my digression - I declare before heaven I have made it!
Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy

what to do? part 2

sketchbook entry, January 10, 2007
*initial idea - take passages from texts representative of the areas covered in the Honors College and make reversals of them.

I began making "reversal drawings" in 1996 or so. I select a commonly used phrase or cliche that contains the conjunction "and" or "or," and reverse the order of the words on each side of the conjunction; for instance, "determined and bound," "country and god," "weep and read 'em," "shine and rise." I'm interested in the potential for poetry and political commentary intrinsic in these reversals. That they might cause a viewer/reader to pause for even a second is also a desired effect, because in that nano second of doubt, the viewer is really engaged. In some ways, I see the act of reversal as a reclamation particularly appropriate for use in a culture that's tired and sick.

what to do? part 1

A note: As this commission process started in January, I'm writing about this part of the process after the fact. I'll make sure to let you know when what I'm writing is current.


While I was thinking about where the drawing should go, I was also thinking about what the drawing should be. I was interested that it was going to be in the Honors College, where the curriculum is influenced by great books of Western thought that have fueled the so called "Great Conversation." (See the "new five foot shelf" Ruppersberg link.) As my work for the past decade has almost exclusively considered the relationship of word and image, I was anticipating that one or several of those books would be the basis for my commission. I first visited the Estess Family Alumni Library inside the Honors College on January 10th of this year. Here's a short list of books I wrote down in my sketch book:

Michaelangelo the Painter
Collected Work of John Stuart Mill
Selected writings of Lord Acton
Collected Works of James M. Buchanan
Selected Writings of Sir Edmund Coke
etc.

I hadn't previously read one word in any of those books, nor had I heard of some of the authors. And I wasn't aware, for instance, that Sir Edmund Coke was responsible for a sentimental quote I'd heard my entire life: "A man's home is his castle." My experience in the Estess library underscored my insufficient education, and maybe provided a reason as to why the best I could ever hope for in my conversations was "good." This wasn't feeling like where the source for my drawing was going to come from, but I wasn't ready to give up yet.

the space

The commons area at the Honors College (above) is a trapezoid-shaped space with two long, 10' high uninterrupted sheetrock walls that begin above the wood-paneling at approximately 10', and two other shorter walls that are punctuated by large windows on the west and south sides of the room.

After several visits and spending time in the space, I decided that I would concentrate on the north wall (above) for the commission as it was the entrance and exit for the room, and because of the symmetry of the door and windows. It also seemed that it would be the most visible location in the room, and at a little over 37' long, an appropriately scaled wall for the size drawing I'd have to do to hold the room.

an introduction

An art panel at the University of Houston recently approved my drawing proposal for the commons area of the Honors College at the University. I decided to create this blog as both a way of sharing my process with anyone interested (especially students in the Honors College), and as an incentive for me to keep a detailed, up-to-date record of the process. And, as the commission will presumably have a definable beginning and end, it seemed like a sensible enterprise about which to devote a maiden blog. I'll have more background explanation on my next post.