This drawing was inspired by a small, wooden carving I saw recently at a show of Mexican art at the Peninsula Fine Art Center in Newport News. The piece looked like it had been assembled from found pieces of wood; a bust of Jesus, a fragment from some smashed alter piece (who knows, maybe damaged in an earthquake?), framed by golden wooden boards decorated with rough-hew stone inlay. The piece is small, just a foot high, an intimate scale that lures the viewer close so they can smell the dust and see the brush hairs frozen in the thick oil paint. I wish I had made that piece. If a particular work of art strikes that chord in me, energizes the urge to create, then it succeeds for me on a soul level, it is nourishment. I drew this little sketch from memory, so the details aren't exact, in fact I gave myself permission to interpret, to allow the thick lens of my mind warp the image and accept this new thing, a melange of the real and the imagined. I have been trying to get back into the habit of drawing again, of making art of any kind, and the sketch fits the time and space I have now. My wife draws constantly, and I admire her fearlessness to experiment and step out of her comfort zone. She recently started a blog called "Daily Drawing" where she actually is posting a drawing a day. Since the first time I saw her art, I have always felt a connection to the images that she makes. There is a deepness and a mystery there like looking at cave paintings by candlelight while listening to a distant, storm cloud opera crashing and booming on the edge of the night. It too is nourishment...
OK HW
