Drawings on Wood

Tethered: Bell South, Singer, Royal, and Sony, 2020
14" x 98" x 2"
Graphite on wood panel

During the COVID-19 crisis, the dining room in our house became my provisional office-studio in order to facilitate my creative activity while sheltering at home and minimizing public interaction.  As a result of this process of centralization and simplification, I returned to drawing with graphite on wood panels to capture and express the tensions produced by the pandemic during the months of April-July of 2020. 

This series of artworks focuses on analog objects from the dustbin of communication technology. These mementos embody the desire to touch, share, and listen, but also serve as slow public service announcements that demonstrate a need for social distancing that conflicts with the need for social contact.  The rawness of the wood grain and formality of the frame design elevate the perception of value of these analog phones, typewriters, sewing machines, and cassette player by focusing attention on the connection between the sensual materiality of the objects, their design made for contact or communication, and the deferral of these intended destinies by the six feet that stretches them apart.  

I started Drawing on Wood in 2011…

One of my favorite materials to draw on is wood using graphite pencils to build up layers of values. As I draw, I think about the specific type of tree and the stories of growth, history, and manufacturing that brought each time capsule of wood panel to my studio. I combine the wood grain patterns with drawings of disparate objects and remnants of past yearnings such as typewriters, telephones, and victrola horns - inventions that connected people spreading ideas, stories, and art.

Why 2011? During that year I was pregnant and to continue to create from home and in ways that were more comfortable, I returned to drawing. Since then, drawing has continued to be a primary area of my studio practice.