Organon

During a conversation with the theologian Tom Ravetz yesterday evening, he described what I was doing as drawing in three dimensions.  This statement struck me because of its perception and aptness to describe what I do or rather not do when working.  Generally a sculptor draws out his ideas before working.  At least I have always had a sense that this is what I should be doing.  However, whenever I have sat down with pencil and paper in hand and drawn out an idea, I have had a strong feeling that I am going through the motions of process and that the real drawing starts with the sculpture material itself.

Drawing in its simplest form is normally taken as the trace of the eye or some other algorithmic process translated into visible marks experienced through sight.  This assertion leads me to ask the question, what if drawing were to be done so as to be perceived through another sense?  This is a perfectly reasonable thesis to posit.  In my case that sense would be or is, touch but there is no reason why some other sense could not be invoked; we do best what we are most inclined to do without too much thought; shape and touch are a principle way in which I enjoy the world and appreciate its beauty and symmetry.

A man ought not to work for any why…but only for that which is his being, his very life within him.       Meister Eckhart

If drawing is a means of tracing, mapping and representing an aspect of the world we see and worlds we can only imagine, then I am translating inro a tactile language a world where form and function, essence and end are simultaneously consistent, one and the same thing.  That world of biology, contains the theme of my work but it is not the subject.  By making the distinction I prepare myself to avoid description, illustration or comment.  The broken symmetry between biology and art I liken to the boundary that we as humans have constantly redrawn between ourselves and the rest of nature.  An elastic lamina forged by people over time arising out of our need to deal with the large questions that emerge as a function of our capacity to perceive existence.

Bibliography

Arber, A. (1954). The Natural Philosophy of Plant Form. Cambridge.

Pfeiffer, F. (1924, 2nd impr. 1949), J. Eckhart’s Serm. LXV, p. 163.