This is part of an occasional series about objects that live in my studio.

That drawing–that’s an important drawing.  That’s the Wrigley Building in Chicago, and I did that on the street.  I did a whole series of Chicago drawings when I graduated from college, and used pastel and charcoal, and just went for two weeks and produced a series of drawings which, at the time, I was NOT happy with, because I had wanted to produce very technical, detailed, architectural drawings.  I had a scholarship to go and sketch. So essentially, I got very frustrated doing that. It was too tedious, and Chicago seemed too big. There was no way I could capture, in two weeks, anything. So I got really frustrated, and time pressure was mounting, and so I just went and bought these charcoal pastels and oil pastels and big paper and started doing these drawings on the street, and just really wild, crazy… and it was not like anything I had done before.

Here’s one.  This is underneath the elevated railway.

Here’s one of a stairway.

I don’t know how many there are. There’s a lot. Here’s the Chicago Tribune building.

These were a big deal because it just pushed me out of my comfort zone completely. It was raining and I would just stand and do this drawing.

I hated these when I did them.  I absolutely hated them. And I had to bring them back, because it’s all I had, right?  And these were one of the most important things I ever did, I think, just because they… because you don’t even see, you don’t even know what you’re looking at.

I did this in Turkey, too–I went to Istanbul and sketched for a couple of weeks.

But that was an important breakthrough, those Chicago drawings.  And it took me a long time to see it too.  I remember my friend who–really talented, one of my best friends–he said, those are beautiful!  And I was like, are you kidding me? I almost threw them out. And he was like, well you’re crazy. But then I saw it, later.  I realized, it pushed me beyond anything. And that’s the whole deal. And so yes, you never really know what you’re doing, you never know what you’re looking at. 

I think right now at this point, that I respect that. Like when I get some idea, I don’t just jump on it with expectations, right? Who knows where it’s coming from?  So you gotta just sit and respect it, and there’s mystery, and you don’t know the source of these things. You have to leave room for the magic. Make room for it too.

studio