50/50 Project, documenting 50 small works on paper done in 50 days
The theme and title of this piece is “Two Men Talking." I have been a painter for all of my adult life, mostly working in a very large scale; but before I was seduced by paint I spent a good part of my childhood on the floor drawing happily with pencils, ink and crayons. I had been meaning to get back to drawing for many years and this project, because of the imposed small scale and limited time frame, seemed to lend itself well to drawing.
Another aspect of this project relates to my 1950‘s childhood, and that is all the images of men in suits and hats talking to each other. My father worked in the Art Department of the Detroit Times newspaper and he would sometimes take me to his office downtown. The thousands of men in dark suits and hats rushing around and talking to each other very intensely about seemingly very important things made a big impression on me. It was the complete opposite of my usual landscape of mothers in colorful dresses sitting around on front porches while their children played.
When I started this project I looked at many photographs of men talking and also became much more aware of gesturing and body language in general. Being an artist, and not a psychologist, I will leave the analysis to others and say only that I have found this project to be very helpful in that it reminded me of of a very important aspect of drawing; one is forced to slow down and look at things very closely, which in turn makes one feel more engaged in the world, and closer to the things that are drawn.
