Black ink on white paper was what I was doing when the automatic drawing showed up, and what I experimented with for a good amount of time. It is a traditional starting point for many artists. With its stark contrast it reveals all of the power and flaws of the form with no color energy to confuse, distract or influence.
This format is also a parallel to script, which makes use of full binary contrast to make the characters and the meaning they impart legible and immediately comprehensive. I see my work as metaphorically related to script and could be seen as automatic scripting, even though not as automatic writing, The characters’ representation must be interpreted from their intrinsic form.
The binary aspect of black and white is also very rich with metaphorical reference in itself. The Yin-Yang symbol and its concept shows this very clearly. Informational systems based on this binary polarity, such as ink on paper and digital codification, are also part of the metaphorical construct.
I have been doing many of these smaller format drawings using india ink with a goose quill on smooth bristol paper. I have been applying this to a few larger format as well, but have now a good collection of these smaller images.
Without the distraction of color, I can see more succinctly the intrinsic quality of my drawings. The decision of tool and media have been made so the task is to draw until the image flashes as done. I am refining my sense of what completion is for these drawings, and so all my work in general, in being able to see and know the culmination that gives the greatest effect.
I have also been combining two previous developed approaches into individual pieces, fusing scrolls and proximity drawings. As referenced above, I see a relation of my automatic drawing to script, and in that I have done several works in very long formats in the form of scrolls, with some works taking up complete rolls of paper. These works are not necessarily meant for full display. Proximity drawings are done on a vertical surface. Most usually I work on a flat table, but proximity drawings done on a vertical surface are intended to be hung at the same height in which they were completed. I call them proximity drawings because they show the actual placement in space of myself to the drawing and also serve as a document of an event. In combining the two approaches I am doing studies for very long proximity scrolls which will be of thirty feet in length. Here is is one of the studies, 3ft x 8ft.
An interesting aspect of the proximity drawing is when standing and painting on a vertical surface the width of the marks are naturally encompassed within a three foot heighth. I am also planning to do long murals in the same proximity approach (there is no other way if I am standing and painting on a fixed surface). Of course I would start with black on white, as that will give the most powerful representation on the intrinsic aspect of the form.
I am also returning to the achromatic ecstatic screen formation. This has been one of my most successful experiments and it is now beyond the time to revive it. i stated off with white on black and am now doing several of black on white. These are 5ft square, smaller than the original series at 7ft x 6.5ft.
Again, with these it is good to find the full sense of the patterned details with the heightened contrast of black and white. I have been gifted five quality stretchers at 6ft x 5ft and am planning to do an immersive installation a total size of 6ft x 25ft. I am working on models of density. I also need to decide if I will use the format of most of the original ecstatic screen works, which although look like just black on white, actually also employ a very dark burnt umber and a dark rich violet on a very slight color cast in the white primer. We have to be honest, there really is no strictly black and white in media. Everything has a cast in relation to other media formula. So even in achromatic there is still a decision around chroma, and this can be used creatively.
Another thing about returning to achromatic palette which is not specifically about the colors but more about implied reduced compositional decisions is that I can give more attention to the systemic ecstatic movement within me when I do the work and not be distracted by other compositional decisions as I go. The movement will come with the most cursory attention (that is the nature of automatic) but I consider a focus in what is transpiring in me as part of the artistic process. This focus was essential to the development of my ecstatic abilities and without it I don’t think I would have been able to take it out into the public, which is the continuation of my creative ecstatic exploration. Since the choice of media and tool have been made, I only have to focus on the ecstatic movement arising, again making this approach as going back to the most essential.
I am sure I will go back to using color and will venture to it even currently from time to time. For now though focusing on a black and white format will reassert the intrinsic quality of my work in it’s presentation, without color detracting or influencing the viewer away from the quality of the form which I am able to capture, and let me refine my skill at seeing and capturing that quality.
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