I came to AAS about 20 years ago when phone-cameras were nonexistent and many of the printed materials I looked at were too rare and delicate to put even near a copy machine. Using only what was allowed in the library; plain pencil, eraser, ruler—and I slowly filled many pages with careful records.This past summer, I found a few notebooks from that time and include a shot here.
Sketchbook from AAS, 2002, open sketchbook measures 9 x 13”, each page 9 x 6.5", pencil. Click the image above to view the full notebook page.
Worcester really impressed me. I liked the town’s layers of blue collar and blue-stocking histories and the view up to the archive holding it all on the hill. Poking around I accidentally discovered Worcester’s relationship to wire production and it’s fabled contribution to the transatlantic cable. I felt that my fellowship was a re-wiring too, connecting my academic research in new ways to my studio pursuits. I hadn’t seen my drawings as ends in themselves since student days until I began to make printing plates from my AAS notebooks. My reading-room time rekindled daily sketching- and since then, I don’t travel or read without a way to draw notes.
‘Laying Cable’ was an early panoramic piece made with hand-printed pages I drew at AAS. My sense of drawing, and the page itself has expanded exponentially ever since.
Laying Cable, 2010, 17.5 x 47”, Lithographic transfer, oil, ink, hand color. Click the image above to view the full panoramic piece.