untitled volcano drawing 2007

This drawing was made in 2007, and is the first in a series of drawings of volcanoes. It is made from graphite powder, pastel and graphite pencil. Owing to a hiatus in personal life work on the series was brought to a standstill until the last weeks of 2008, when I was also working on the rainbow drawings.
As with the rainbow drawings, the employment of an archetypal symbol suggested itself to me, as a means to convey fragile states of mind visually.
"Volcanoes are external indications of inward disturbances...." These are the opening words of a chapter on "Volcanic Action and its Effects", from a geology book entitled "The Story of Our Planet", by T. G. Bonney D.Sc., first published in 1893. (I believe that the edition I have is from 1902). There seemed to be no more apt words to describe my own endeavour. However, the volcano drawings may be read symbolically , or not.
The shape of this mountain is taken from the profile of the Ecuadorean mountain, Cotopaxi, and inspired by an engraving in "The Story of Our Planet", by Mr Whymper, originally published in his book, "Travels in the Great Andes of the Equator".

Niagra Falls from Prospect Park by Illumination

The third image from the Niagra Falls series that I have in my possession is entitled "Niagra Falls from Prospect Park by Illumination". On the back of this postcard there is also a text beginning in the same elevated tone as that of the first card; "Exceeds Sun's Brilliance..." and continues "When the new floodlights are marching across the Falls, and resting on either or both of the American and Canadian faces of them, or playing in the mist of spray above them, they are described by beholders as more beautiful than ever the Spray and the Sun combined could make them in the past, or than ever the Moon and the mist could make them. The effect is described as one suggesting that both the Sun and the Aurora Borealis have combined to do their utmost in the creation of a new spectacle."

American Falls of Niagra in Winter

This is an image also taken from a postcard, in the same series as the first. It also has the date 1928 pencilled on the back, and is entitled,"American Falls of Niagra in Winter". A brief text informs us that the falls are "illuminated by one billion c.p. electric searchlights".
As with the firstpostcard, I enjoy the quality of the image; I imagine the original was hand tinted before the edition was printed. It is, by modern standards, decidedly 'low-tech'. Perhaps that is part of the attraction I feel towards it.

American Falls from Canada by Illumination, Niagra

This image is of a postcard dated on the back, in pencil, 1928. It is entitled, "American Falls from Canada by Illumination, Niagra Falls".
It is the photograph itself which I find beautiful, I enjoy the isolation of the colours and forms in the surrounding darkness.
I would not go so far as to agree with the text on the back, which assumes a somewhat arrogant stance and reads; "This new enhancement of America's beauty resources is nothing more than the Falls, under flood lighting for four hours each night. Their own power has been taken from them, brought under the control of man, and then turned back oupon the power creator itself, and we get a new beauty, ten-fold greater than any beauty known at the Falls before man took hold to conquer them for service."

rainbow and hand drawing 2009

This drawing is entitled rainbow and hand drawing. It was made in November 2009, and consists of two sketches on a piece of scrap paper. I came to realise that the smokey image at the bottom of the paper resembled a hand, and that the two images went together as if I had intended them to all along. So the drawing came to be the rainbow and hand drawing.
The drawing is made from felt tip, graphite pencil and wax crayon.
I still remember the joy of receiving a packet of felt tips as a Christmas present when I was a child. They are, in their way, as crude as wax crayons, and yet are similarly capable of great delicacy.

untitled rainbow drawing 2008

This drawing too, is untitled. It was made in the later months of 2008, following discharge from psychiatric hospital. Those months seem to have been shaded by a prevailing darkness. It was, nevertheless a period when several drawings were made, and I also resumed work on a series of drawings of volcanoes, a series begun in 2007.
This drawing is one of the first of the rainbow drawings, followed by the Winter rainbow drawings.
( In July 2010, I changed this drawing, so that I have only a photographic record of it, as seen here, this drawing no longer exists. It has been shrouded in a dark pastel cloud, and is entitled dark rainbow drawing II. It appears as a revised drawing much later, under the entries for August 2010).

untitled rainbow drawing 2009

This drawing also remains untitled, and I cannot remember the time of its making, except that it was around the Summer or Autumn of 2009. It certainly preceded the dark rainbow drawing, therefore must have been made before September 2009. I am familiar with it, yet I do not remember making it. I know that the figure of the double rainbow appeared with the rainbow drawings of 2008. Sometimes the rainbows are close together, and sometimes they appear to be separating from each other, almost as though they were being peeled apart.
For me, a drawing is an interface between the self and the external world, a site where received and processed information is laid down, where the articulation of the imagination takes place.