birdspot

Somehow I have found myself in Tahiti. It’s a long story, but I will post from time to time if I can. If I can figure out how to post photos, I will! Back in three weeks.

Opening day! The event was wonderful. Thank you so much to everyone who came out for it! For any who missed the opening, I will be in and out of the gallery until the end of the week, and the exhibit runs through May 15.

This little gem of a sketch is by Rosa Bonheur, an art history book stalwart if ever there was one. My ancient copies of Gardner’s Art through the Ages, or Janson’s History of Art seemed to have exactly two women artists before 1970: Artemisia Gentileschi and Rosa Bonheur. I’m sure there were perhaps one or two more, but you get the idea. When I saw this in the Mass Audubon’s Visual Arts Center collection, my jaw dropped, and into my exhibit it went (Ink, Internet, & Identification – Catherine Hamilton as Curator and Artist – opens Jan 16, 2011). Though not a bird, it embodies everything I love about sketching, and drawing. Just look at the movement in the head on the elk (?) on the right. Astonishing.

A sketch, with marks scrawled and scratched onto it, is a small act of bravery. Ink shows us thoughts, not things.

When I look at a drawing, and follow its lines, I see straight through history and culture. We read drawing as easily as we do writing, and it can expose an artist’s mind. It’s pretty scary to show your work publicly for this reason, at least for me. Indelible lines, for better or worse, record the exact moment they were drawn: learning and exploration sit in plain view. Clumsiness and elegance intertwine. There is, however, surprising flexibility in the medium, despite the fact that every mark put onto a blank sheet shows when the drawing is complete. Is it boldly defined in a few strokes, or pulled slowly out of emptiness? Is it preparatory to something larger, or is it a finished piece, a finished idea?

Studies of a Dead Hermit Thrush, ink on paper.