These drawings were all deeply directed by music. Some carry the names of the songs I listened to while creating them and others were named spontaneously. Each piece represents six, eight, or ten hours of calm that I was able to carve out of a few individual days back in 2008.
The routine went like this: I would turn on music (through this body of work it was primarily the Radiohead albums Kid A and Amnesiac, and several classical Indian musicians such as Pt. Tarun Bhattacharya and Shivkumar Sharma, all excellent trance music in my opinion), get stoned, and attempt to let my hand do all the thinking, drifting along the surface of the paper while my conscious thoughts meandered where they might, unconcerned with the act of making.
The point was to meditate, to find some peace during what were difficult days. Looking back, I still feel that a few of the works illustrate that peace, and represent the origins of my creative process as it began to evolve into an equally therapeutic process.
Raga
2008 marker on paper 18×24
It was only briefly that I was there, but more so that I was not. And when I was not, I could clearly see how addictive being present could be, to the point that I had to commit serious consideration to stepping back, looking into space, seeing nothing at all in particular in order to see everything, so as to disappear completely.
2008 marker on paper 22×30 sold
How to disappear completely
2008 marker on paper 18×24
Sampradaya
2008 marker on paper 18×24
Everything in its right place
2008 marker on paper 18×24 sold
Morning bell
2008 marker on paper 18×24 sold
After years of waiting
2008 marker on paper 18×24
Snails pace
2008 marker on paper 18×24
Internal roadmap of the path of least resistance, which tends to be the path I never take. Though I’m still at a loss as to why that is. Which is true. Even when the easy way is well lit and stretches out directly before me, it is more likely that I will bang my head into the wall of opposition repeatedly in order to learn where to place my next step. Which is to say, yet again, that it’s been a hard eight years. And who knows what the next eight will bring.
2008 marker on paper 22×30
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