The Interrupted Drawing

I miss posting on my blog - my favorite blog, I might add. And it's my favorite not because I'm conceited or proud, but because it's such a wonderful outlet for writing about the things I'm most passionate about - beauty in life, vibrant color, nature, people. It's not just about the art. It's about the impetus behind the work. It's what motivates or inspires the work in the first place, the complex interweaving of events and people that bring it all together.

Art can be viewed as a product of our lives. The way I see it, art is the finished or fixed expression of everything that happened to me in the last while before I painted or drew the piece. It's a kind of visual diary piece - telling you the viewer, all about me.

Conversely, the flip side of the work, is YOU - the viewer. Someone who doesn't know me very well looked at this drawing and said, "That's it? Just a few trees? It looks empty." Just as my life informs and creates my art, your life informs and interprets everything you see. And many times when we observe something, we're not looking at it with a careful eye. We miss a myriad of details. And depending on your background, your beliefs and attitudes, you won't see those details the same way I might see them. This is one of the reasons why art is so subjective, and why some art will speak to you while others won't.

This is a drawing done while I sitting at a picnic table positioned at a campsite by Long Lake. It was early in the morning and I was staring off into space enjoying the smell of fresh air mingled with my morning coffee, and the chatter of the birds. I pulled out my sketchbook and thought it would be a good warm up exercise to draw the trees that graced the perimeter of the campsite next to mine. I have always loved trees - their unique shapes and how expressive their branches are in the way they reach up to the sky. I noticed that there were also a lot of dead branches hanging in various strange positions. As I drew I started to remember the challenge of drawing exactly what I see, but at the same time accentuating or exaggerating the small details that interested me - which in this case where the shapes of the dead branches - the dead among the living.

All of a sudden in the middle of this drawing, a massive RV pulled up into the spot next to our campsite and completely blocked my view. So the drawing didn't get finished. I had planned on filling in the background with a forest of trees - not as detailed as the trees in the foreground, but I didn't. And I don't think I will anymore, because the comment, "That's it?" reminds me of how life interrupts us. There are always things that pop up unexpectedly that interfere with what we're doing. And our lives, or the products of our lives are affected. They are altered in subtle and sometimes not so subtle ways.

The resulting product is also a product of my choice. And it's my choice as to whether or not I want to add the rest of those trees or leave as is. So when someone looks at my work, or some isolated part of my life as says, "That's it?" you have to remember that it's a moment in time they're observing. And that moment is surrounded by everything that brought me to this point now - the point where you are reading this post. My point? The white spaces that seem empty are actually filled with perhaps more of a story than the area that's not white.

So the next time you're looking at something that raises questions, ask yourself why the questions are even there! Give the seemingly empty places the benefit of a doubt - there might be something in those spaces that you never imagined existed!

All the best,
Kate