Fragments

Pages from Fragments, 2017, India ink wash on torn papers of various sizes, artist book

Many of these fragments have a stone/geological feel to them, some have a topographical map feel to them (rivers, roads, mountains, forests, urban), and they have an ancient artifact quality about them…it’s the bits of this and that I’ve been looking for when I set out to make them, there it a crudeness to them, asymmetrical and imperfect, raw and rough. Photographing them, shuffling them around in a pile and exposing layers, edges, corners, and textures is allowing me to overlap from the tactile creation of the objects to the recording them digitally and creating images that are not permanent, like the tide on a stony beach, everything is rearranged by time and force. Loosely binding these pages in a book keeps them together, a record of the day they were made, and like all collections of things, objects, can be taken out, examined one by one, and then arranged and rearranged.

I like that. This is something I’ve wanted to do for a very long time.

One of the things I love about India ink is how it reacts to paper, wet or dry, it can come up warm almost brown, and sometimes cool, nearly bluish, and the blackest black areas are not totally opaque, there's still a shimmer of light in the surface...it's a gorgeous, simple medium to work in and I've always loved it...

When I was tearing up the paper I left this long tail on this one, figuring, "why not?" It bugs me a little bit, but I keep it there because it would look odd if I tore it off now. If it came off on its own by accident, that would be okay...

I love this spotted piece!

I'm a paper hoarder so I've been taking the opportunity to dig around in my studio to unearth these bits and pieces of papers that I've saved for "something someday." I keep finding more (and buying more) so it's seems like I'm set for a while...

What I do love about these, there are some that are perfect on their own (both sides), even the ones that are not as interesting, the plain ones, are part of the support structure of the group, adding dimension, tone, texture, contrast...some of the more bolder, eye catching, pieces are often most interesting when partially exposed within the layers, an edge, a corner, or somewhere in the middle and only a sliver of it is showing through a fissure.

I'm extremely happy these days...