I Just Hold the Pen

Untitled in Progress drawing with requisite coffee blotches still showing

There was an accident in my studio the other day. Nothing major. I just knocked over the coffee thermos and spilled a little coffee on my desk. In my frustration, I just wiped everything off the desk onto the floor before the coffee could spread. Unnoticed, it had spilled on a piece of mail which was also swiped off the desk.

My drawing activity takes place on a chair behind my desk. The in progress drawing sits on a box awaiting my return. when I went back to work on it I noticed a dozen or so small, dried droplets of coffee all over the drawing. Oy vay! A weeks work. But I’ve been here before. The only solution is to integrate the droplets into the drawing so that only I know they are there. Next session I go to work, but something else is happing. Something unexpected. In covering up the accident other creative pathways are insinuating themselves. This is what we call a happy accident.

I have no idea what I am doing. I only hold the pen. Other forces move my hand. Something proposes itself. Then another. Can I obey. This is the process at its best.

There was an experiment I conducted over 15 years ago. The experiment, which I hope to share soon, resulted in a sketch project called “Random Scrawls.” It consisted of taking a ball point pen, and just scribbling randomly on a page. The next step is to quietly meditate on the scribble and and allow the images that I see emerge, followed by rendering what is seen in the image. Some of the results were inspiring for me and have led me to the current iteration that I work in. Allowing the images to find their way in, and to be obedient to the impulse.

So this is the justification for the comment “I just hold the pen.”

Sample from “Random Scrawls 2003