Pause for Thought

The afternoon tea break at work today afforded the opportunity to have a brief browse at least through the latest, September 2011 issue of Modern Painters, including as it does an article on & also a Q&A with Richard Serra, during the latter of which he claims, on the subject of drawing & keeping sketchbooks, "For me seeing is a way of thinking, and drawing is my way of recording my thoughts", a philosophy that struck a mighty chord, such is the contemplative importance I've always attached to the process of looking & drawing, the activity of thought.

Does the lack of any drawing activity on my part then signify that I'm also not thinking...? And further to that, taking the Cartesian view, does that suggest that, not drawing, not thinking, therefore I am...not?

The Delicate Art of Books...

A reluctant return to the day job following the most productive 'snow days' absence of last week, but not quite all was lost as this commitment at least afforded a rare opportunity to make a quick sketch, of a pair of books, disturbed from their slightly-reclining upright position upon their respective display perches at the end of a stack of shelves. Having fallen, slumped, tilting forward to rest against each other, the books now performed a delicate balancing act along the almost-horizontal, held together in a tense act of apparently miraculous gravitational defiance, an accidental sculpture/installation.


graphite/15x10cm scrap

Such encounter brought to mind something of the order of Eugenie Scrase's wonderfully observed 'School of Saatchi'-winning installation 'Trunkated Trunk', a chunk of tree trunk sawn from a whole fallen to become accidentally impaled upon iron railings, found along a residential street, which again illustrates that art might be found anywhere one has the sensibility to appreciate it or its potential as such & then realise such vision,


Eugenie Scrase 'Trunkated Trunk' 2009

& also the balancing-act steel sculptures of Richard Serra, one such example of which is pictured below.


Richard Serra 'Kittyhawk' 1983