A thesis submitted as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Fine Arts degree at the University of Nevada, Reno

Between Here and There

Weston Lee

Spring 2021

Committee Members:

Miya Hannan (Chair)

Tamara Scronce

Eunkang Koh

Christopher Coake 1

Introduction

There were four of us one afternoon sitting around in my friend’s living room. We started talking about a word and its meaning, sharing different points of view about it and offering various possible examples in attempts to clarify the word’s meaning. It was a common word, a word we all were familiar with, but we felt it often was used incorrectly. We kept coming up with examples to which we often responded: “No that isn’t a true case of it,” or “That’s close, but here’s why I think that’s not quite it either.” We went around and around taking turns with observations, considerations, alternatives and attempt after attempt. This conversation continued for a few hours.

It was brainstorming, it was creative problem-solving, it was interactive, and it was sharing our thoughts and opinions with one another. It is a conversation that my friends and I have commented on since, years past now, as one of the most fun conversations any of us have ever had. We did it without Googling — purposefully. We did not want to “know” the answer from some authoritative source; it wasn’t about “knowing” at all. It was all about the search, the process, and the stumbling around together with a common interest. It was about letting ourselves be curious and seeing where our curiosity might lead us.

My drawings are very much like that conversation with my friends, they are about process as much as they are about a result. They are about the experience and the expression of something intangible, something we cannot Google to find the answer. In today’s world of technology, do we exercise our creative thinking, or ponder, or allow ourselves to wonder anymore? Or, when we are faced with a question do we just look it up in a flash and then race onward? I am looking for something that is less defined but filled with possibilities. My drawings come out of a process of wandering and discovery and become for the viewer an invitation to use their imagination to do the same. They are drawings wherein I hope viewers become lost for a moment in wonder. I value and believe we all need moments that transport us to another 2 experience. I want to create drawings that are spaces that slow us down, a pause perhaps between words.

My artwork is about a sense of wonder, the experience of discovery, the intrigue of the mysterious, and sometimes, the marvel of the unexpected or the strange. My art is also about the finished art piece that viewers can spend time with and respond to and have their own interpretation of, and it is about my personal experience in the creation of the work and being in an authentic space of inspiration while in the making of it. My drawings are imaginary landscapes that reflect my interest in nature’s organic forms and in landscape as a metaphor for exploration. I work from imagination rather than observation so that the imagery is not as much about nature itself and how it looks, but about the feeling I get from nature. This paper will discuss my interest in the role that process has in my work and how and why process is a driving factor for me. I will elaborate on my interest in imagined organic forms and of my relationship with nature and its interconnectedness. I will write of my choice of materials and how that influences my working process and the resulting compositions. This paper will also discuss why and how imaginary imagery and my interests in aesthetics, mystery, and magic are a part of my work. Included will be my interest in making art that engages the viewer, the questions that have taken me in directions I have gone these last few years, and lastly, what I am excited about going forward.

Artwork Prior to Graduate School

Most of my years of making art, I have worked exclusively from observation. I was dedicated with a strong interest to classical realism and wanted only to draw and paint like the old masters. I followed and was inspired by many of the contemporary masters, as well, who have revived the teaching of academic skills such as Jacob Collins, Travis Schlaht, and Graydon Parrish. Of the old masters, Rembrandt van Rijn and William Bouguereau are two artists particularly who have for many years inspired 3 me to paint. I have often traveled to museums with the sole purpose of seeing one of their paintings in person. Given the opportunity, I would stand in front of one of their paintings and marvel at the beauty of form and the sense of light — Rembrandt with his dramatic lighting and feel for atmosphere within which the subjects exist, and Bouguereau with his soft light and subtle hue shifts in the skin tones of his figures.

Through the experience of learning and practicing these old masters’ techniques over several years, I discovered that I did not genuinely enjoy the actual making of the realistic paintings even though I admired the results. The process was very involved, with many required steps: preliminary drawings, a full-scale cartoon drawing, transfer of the cartoon onto the wood panel, redrawing/tracing the entire composition when transferring it, painting the under-painting in bister and grisaille to establish the lights and darks and contrasts of transparency and opacity, and warm-cool relationships, and then finally painting color using both glazing and direct painting techniques.

After a number of years of this serious academic practice, I realized I had lost the joy of making art. It had become all about technique and results. This experience and realization are what led me to how I draw today. I now work nearly completely from imagination, letting go of drawing only what I see in front of me. It could be said that I have given myself permission to create my own reality. I loosened up from drawing very tight realistic renderings to, now, letting go of that control – although not entirely, but selectively. Rediscovering the joy and excitement of drawing brought the process of mark-making to my attention, rather than focusing on results. I learned to accept and incorporate the unexpected and the unplanned and embrace the process. However, in these drawings, I do not completely abandon my interest in formalism and the creating of an illusion of form and space through traditional skills/methods. I balance the two. It was a slow transformation for me to accept that I was not going to paint like Rembrandt and to let go of that idea for myself, a process which the artist and teacher Robert Henri describes in The Art Spirit: 4

...you will never find yourself unless you quit preconceiving what you will be when you have found yourself. What, after all, are your greatest, deepest, and all-possessing interests? Most people seem to think they are great enough to know beforehand, and what generally results is that they imprison themselves in some sort of Girl and Goldfish subject, which, as I say, they may admire from the hand of another but for which they have no personal vocation. Those who are so imprisoned work like prisoners. You can see where the heart is out of it. Pictures tell the story of actual impulse in the artist — or the lack of it.

What you need is to free yourself from your own preconceived ideas about yourself. It will take a revolution to do it, and many times you will think yourself on the road only to find that the old habit has possessed you again with a new preconception. But if you can at least to a degree free yourself, take your head off your heart and give the latter a chance, something may come of it. The results will not be what you expect, but they will be like you and will be the best that can come from you. There will be a lot more pleasure in the doing. (195)

I very much did feel like a prisoner during that period. My head was fully in the lead while not giving a voice to my heart. Working without preliminary drawings or any preconceived composition became such a different way of working and a first step in breaking from working and thinking so traditionally. In the beginning it was a constant challenge to not allow my thoughts to get involved and jump ahead of the process with an idea. My more successful drawings were those during which I was able to minimize my head’s voice and be guided instead by intuition and trust of the process. It was a unique approach for me that I found very stimulating and rewarding. Instead of dictating an idea to the drawing paper, it was like having a conversation with the paper and the marks, listening to how they look and feel along the way and responding. Shaun McNiff, author of Trust the Process, writes about this approach:

It has always been the unexpected happenings that have produced the most gratifying results. I prepare by establishing a simple framework of what I want to do, but I always leave room for what is generated by the event. The creative process blends structure with chance.

I do the same thing when I am painting. After establishing a rough and overall form, I let the unique qualities of unplanned gestures and color combinations emerge through the process of painting. (13) 5

The creative discipline involves the ability to keep the field of activity open and responsive to what arrives. (21)

Trusting the process is based on a belief that something valuable will emerge when we step into the unknown. There are elements of surrender and letting go which have more to do with flexibility and the ability to change direction.... (27)

The process of my making images changed and I also chose different media. Instead of oil paints I used charcoal and watercolor (occasionally acrylic). I would begin each drawing by painting thin layers of watercolor paint onto the paper without any representational imagery in mind, letting the fluid medium flow in random directions and creating a field of abstract shapes. When the color was dry, I would respond to the abstract shapes and colors, “listening to what they suggested” by drawing with charcoal on top of the paint, “pulling out” three-dimensional forms, modeling them with a sense of light and shadow and emphasizing textures that the painted areas hinted at (Fig. 1, 2 and 3). During the course of working on a piece, I would continuously step back and consider what direction the forms may go next, what might show up, what might be suggested and how I could bring to the composition a feeling of space or environment of some sort, often incorporating my interest in atmospheric perspective and layering of forms.

With each piece, I would turn the paper in different orientations before starting the charcoal drawing in order to give the paint shapes a different look that would suggest something I had not initially seen. I would also sometimes change the paper’s orientation after the drawing had progressed quite far and discover a whole different perspective. The mere turning of the paper would completely change the look and feel of the composition and would help me find forms to develop which were not planned or thought of previously. As a result, the look of the finished drawing would rarely become anything I would have thought to draw at the start. It was very much an adventure and an exercise in following my intuition. 6

Fig. 1, 2 and 3. Weston Lee, Transcribed Disclosing 1. 2019. Charcoal and acrylic on paper. 41”W x 29”H. 7

For the first few years of working this way, I created a narrative, where each drawing represented what I saw on an imaginary island. In support of this, I wrote a short story about building a boat and sailing to a strange faraway island. Usually, these drawings were filled with well-defined images of trees and various animals (Fig. 4).

No longer just drawing things that I observed such as still lifes and portraits of sitters, I became interested for the first time in learning to work and think conceptually. Drawing the series of landscapes of an imaginary island was my first venture in this new direction. However, to learn more of how to think and work conceptually, I entered the Master of Fine Art program at the University of Nevada, Reno.

To Wander

“And you may ask yourself, ‘Well... how did I get here?’ And you may ask yourself, ‘How do I work this?’” David Byrne lyrics from Once in a Lifetime, a song by the Talking Heads

It seems like all my life I have been a wanderer. I am still on an unmarked road. Perhaps we all are to varying degrees. Wandering is tied to discovery and being open to what may come next. There is great freedom in wandering. It can lead to adventure and revelation. Wandering in solitude leads to introspection, reflection, dreaming, and experiencing one’s own reality: an imaginary world from another’s perspective, but a real one for the dreamer. While I have continued to work from my imagination and continued to layer charcoal drawing over color washes, my interest throughout the three years of graduate study has been to express a sense of wonder, discovery, and mystery, with organic imagery and landscape as my general subject. I will be writing of particular interests I have explored along the way and of how my thinking has progressed through critique and practice. 8

Organic Forms, Connectedness of Nature — My Inspiration

Making art from imagination has been an exciting and new experience for me. Organic, natural forms drive my imagination and inspire me. Plant forms and animal bodies are endlessly fascinating, beautiful, and strange. These forms have such a three-dimensional presence and variety of shapes and textures. Surfaces arc, curve, swell, stretch, swirl, flow in all directions. Their curvilinear lines have visual beauty and seemingly endless variety while embodying the fantastic-ness of life itself.

In drawing natural forms, I also want to give recognition to the importance and value of nature and our place in it. Life’s interconnections and great variety of dependent communities is a reminder of the importance of our relationships with one another and with nature. The psychologist Bill Plotkin, writes about the relationship between the great outdoors and the emotional fabrication of human life as an important aspect of child development in his book Nature and the Human Soul. According to Plotkin, one of the devastations, perhaps underlying, that has caused today’s ecological crisis is the “epidemic failures in individual human development” due to the loss of one’s touch with nature. Interactions with nature make people experience and understand life, time, place, and themselves, and this helps them to mature as human beings. (113)

Unfortunately, the industrial world has in many ways turned us away from and distanced us from nature, creating an increasing disconnect. My daily life as an adult is far too removed from the wonders of nature. Much of my time every day is spent inside four walls or a car, separate from fresh air, sunlight, and organic life — wilderness. I have been living very separated from nature. I miss being more fully immersed in it and experiencing the sense of adventure nature inspires. Through my artwork, I want to find expression for this interest to reconnect personally, and also to express the importance for all of us to do so, to rediscover and celebrate the value and the beauty of life and forms in the natural world and to be more conscious that we are a part of, not apart from, nature. 9

Fig. 4. Weston Lee, Day 246. 2017. Acrylic, Charcoal and Pastel on paper. 17”W x 11”H.

Fig. 5. Weston Lee. Forms on Blue 2, 2021. Charcoal and watercolor. 22”W x 13”H. 10

In the beginning of this series I often referred to these drawings as being of an imaginary world, an other-world or dream-world, but they also have become for me about rediscovering, or maybe for the first time discovering, and expressing marvel for, the real world and the fantastic network of synchronized relationships between organisms throughout nature on this planet. I aspire in many of my drawings to express visually what David Abram so successfully expresses in his book, Becoming Animal.

Each perceived presence is felt to have its own dynamism, its own pulse, its own active agency in the world. Each phenomenon has the ability to affect and influence the space around it, and the other beings in its vicinity. Every perceived thing, in other words, is felt to be animate — to be (at least potentially) alive. Death itself is more a transformation than a state; a dying organism becomes part of the wider life that surrounds it, as the hollowed-out trunk of a fallen tree feeds back into the broader metabolism of the forest. There is thus no clear divide between that which is animate and that which is inanimate. Rather, to the oral awareness, everything is animate, everything moves. It’s just that some things (like granite boulders) move much slower than other things (like crows or crickets). There are only these different speeds and styles of movement, these divergent rhythms and rates of pulsation, these many different ways of being alive.

The surrounding world, then, is experienced less as a collection of objects than as a community of active agents, or subjects. Indeed, every human community would seem to be nested within a wider, more-than-human community of beings. (268, 269)

I also find inspiration from Lewis Thomas’ writing, The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher.

[On earth] we do not have solitary, isolated creatures. It is beyond our imagination to conceive of a single form of life that exists alone and independent, unattached to other forms. (11)

We are components in a dense, fantastically complicated system of life, we are enmeshed in the interlining, and we really don’t know what we’re up to. (Thomas 12) 11

Many of the organic forms in my drawings can be interpreted as either plant or animal. Some look like they could be the tentacles of a creature while at the same time these same forms may be seen as a root or limb of a plant. Sometimes I suggest the textures of rock on these forms to add yet another layer of open interpretation (Fig. 5). My interest in this is that they are not defined into a set category but indeed can be viewed as either. This is also a way of expressing a connection between the various different organic forms existing in nature.

I have made an intentional choice to work from my imagination instead of directly from observation of nature so that my drawings are less copies of nature and more inspirations from nature.

Questions vs. Answers - Representation and the Abstract

In her book All About Process, Kim Grant, quotes the philosopher Immanuel Kant to say that an artist’s successful process is achieving a balance between established rules and freedom, and this then allows for the creation of beauty (Grant 35, 38). I am striving to achieve such a balance. Not to always be at a center point, where use of rules and freedom are both equally employed, but throughout the creation of the drawing I work with an awareness, a consciousness of moving between those two polarities. While I am drawing in the charcoal stage, I feel the pull toward established rules of perspective and chiaroscuro and an interest in realism. At the same time, I feel the desire to let go of those rules and discover what might come of the drawing if I were to embrace a freedom from them, allowing passages of flat and loose abstract paint to remain undefined and present in the finished piece. Staying away from a traditional “finish” involves the viewer more fully with their own imagination. I began practicing this during my first year when I learned to see how many of my prior drawings had been illustrations essentially, where I was defining much of the composition and thus dictating to the viewer, “this is what you see,” not allowing 12 them to bring their own interpretations. I was giving answers rather than posing questions. Derek Horton, in the book Drawing Ambiguity, states that ambiguity is a necessary condition for contemporary visual culture. Ambiguity is a property of the interpretative relationship between people and things or ideas (1). Ambiguity requires viewers of artwork to participate in making meaning. I decided to learn to pose visual questions rather than to continue working illustratively. It has been a challenge for me to let go of my natural tendency to fully define everything, yet it is a practice I have enjoyed developing a feel for. The fact that there is no clear-cut answer to when a drawing is done calls on me all the more to listen to the individual needs and possibilities of each composition and follow my intuition.

Related to this idea of allowing areas to be less defined and more abstract in order to create something that is more widely open for interpretation is to also avoid including elements that have a strong association with the real world. Including such imagery risks causing the viewer’s thoughts to immediately go to their own experiences and history with that particular image, rather than staying actively engaged in the drawing’s dream world. For example, I am easily tempted to put a bird into one (or more) of my landscapes, yet when we see such an image in a drawing, all of our associations and histories and experiences with that subject suddenly bring us back to this world, pull us out of that imaginary one of my drawing and land us back in the actual world we know and with which we are familiar, a concrete world where our memories and experiences with such a subject are tied together. Content resulting from representational imagery is discussed by Thomas McEvilley as one of thirteen ways to view a blackbird in his essay, On the Manner of Addressing Clouds.

We tend to feel that representation works by a recognizable element of objective resemblance, yet it seems more accurate to say that what we experience as representation is, like aesthetic taste, a culturally conditioned habit-response not involving objective resemblance. (70, 71)

This subject in relation to my work first came up when discussing the drawings which later became my Mid-Way Exhibition. In these drawings, I had begun to exclude 13 images of animals, focusing on textures of organic forms and abstract space (Fig. 6). But I had placed a small bird in one of the landscapes which, in particular, inspired conversation and critique on how that affected a viewer’s experience of the piece (Fig. 7).

McEvilley states that recognizable elements are not objective; rather, each of us will see a representational image with our own associations and experiences with that subject coloring our view of it. To use a bird as an example, for one person the bird may recall fond memories of childhood during summers chasing birds along a seashore while laughing and playing with friends, while another person may be reminded of being a young child gazing out of a large patio sliding glass door one afternoon when suddenly a bird smashed into the glass and lay in a bloodied lump at their feet as they screamed in horror. In both of these examples the viewer is no longer engaged in the drawing’s imaginary world. Beyond past emotional experiences we also have different degrees of knowledge about birds, ranging from knowing very little to possibly having studied ornithology quite extensively. All these factors will influence our viewing of an artwork containing the image of a bird, and therefore the viewer will see that work’s content differently due to the subjective nature of representational images.

I also realized that not only does a bird or other animal’s presence in a drawing have the potential of triggering a viewer’s own associations, but to be aware that such an element also has the consequence of establishing scale. This became another reason for me to include animals less and less, as I do not usually want to dictate the scale of my compositions but want to leave that characteristic open for interpretation; some may be seen as microcosms, some to be of an earthly landscape scale, and others perhaps to be on a cosmic scale. Scale is another one of the thirteen ways McEvilley states content arises from an art piece. Large scale often communicates importance, 14

Fig. 6. Weston Lee, Transcribed Disclosing 2. 2019. Charcoal and acrylic on paper. 41”W x 29”H.

Fig. 7. Weston Lee, Next to a Rock. 2019. Charcoal and acrylic on paper. 29”W x 41”H. 15 as McEvilley cites the Egyptians using when sculpting very large sculptures of their Pharaohs. He notes that easel paintings with their smaller size signified private property, while very large paintings suggest a more public arena. “Scale,” he concludes, “always has content, yet we read it so quickly that we hardly notice” (75).

In addition to these elements of representational imagery and of scale that McEvilley writes about, I also considered my color choices and how color can change the reading of my drawings. In the beginning, I often chose blues and greens because of their relation to vegetation, water, and sky. Then, I became interested to explore more muted earth tones. Ochers, umbers, burnt siennas, and very low-saturation reds and oranges offer a wide variety of quiet tones that are of interest to me not only for their natural connection with the earth and landscape, but also for the possibility that they can be interpreted as flesh and perhaps the interiors of biological organisms. With these, I have begun to draw forms that are bone-like: smooth, rounded undulating surfaces that are not exactly bones but have the feeling and sense of a bone of some kind. These forms are also inspired by flowing flower petals but are imaginary interpretations or expressions of them (Fig 8). Tendons, muscles, and any sort of connecting tissues are all occasional sources of inspiration as well (Fig. 9). I am interested in combining these color schemes (blues and greens with earth tones) sometimes within the same composition to create warm/cool contrasts and to further heighten a sense of atmospheric space through color temperature.

Engaging the Viewer

Many aspects of my art allow for an intentional variety of interpretations or responses. Areas of abstract undefined forms, use of muted colors, an absence of representational recognizable subjects, and little reference to scale or even a ground plane all contribute to a viewer’s freedom to find what they may find separate from my own personal experience or inspiration. The many different ways others see my 16

Fig. 8. Weston Lee, Muted Red with Curving Forms. 2020. Charcoal and watercolor. 30”W x 22”H.

Fig. 9. Weston Lee, Underlying Connections in Muted Red. 2020. Charcoal and watercolor. 30”W x 22”H. 17 art greatly expands what my drawings are about, as a variety of interpretations take the work into many directions independent from how I see them. For many viewers my drawings suggest interior biological bodies, death, decay, tendons and bones. Responses include feelings of unease, anxiousness, fear and varying degrees of unsteadiness in the face of the unknown. Where I see discovery, adventure and a wonder and beauty of organic forms and textures, others may find the imagery unsettling or may feel uncertainty and disquiet in the face of the unfamiliar and the strange. We all have our own experiences and associations and it is this diversity of responses that enrich a work of art.

I hope that in some of my compositions an element of mystery is experienced. That something is suggested beyond the known. As I practice letting go of defining every bit of a drawing and gain a heightened feel for working intuitively, a space opens where mystery may enter. Mystery is not knowing, not having all the answers. Mystery says there is more beyond what we understand. When something mystifies us, we are humbled. Were there no unknowns, no mystery, life would risk becoming overly familiar and suspenseless. Mystery invites curiosity, curiosity keeps us stimulated, alive, engaged with life itself. Mystery wakes us, stirs us to ponder, to imagine possibilities. Mystery is like nature’s tease, giving us a hint of something intriguing but without fully revealing it. Mystery in an art piece engages the viewer by its very nature. The French philosopher and playwright, Gabriel Marcel offered a “distinction between mystery and problem. A problem is a difficulty which can be reduced to detail and which can then be solved. A mystery cannot be reduced to detail; it is something in which one is caught up. Mystery points to the realm beyond words. It is to be witnessed, not solved. (Selk 413) Additionally, I find kinship in the following quotes; “The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery.” (Francis Bacon) “A painting requires a little mystery, some vagueness, some fantasy. When you always make your meaning perfectly plain you end up boring people.” (Edgar Degas) “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science.” (Albert Einstein) (Genn and Genn The mystery in art) 18

I am inviting the viewer to have an experience, become involved. I am inviting the viewer‘s curiosity. I am inviting the viewer to become a collaborator with me. Shawn McNiff writes of this in Trust the Process:

Pictures do generate narratives, even when they are composed purely of textures, colors, and shapes. When there is ambiguity in the composition, this condition tends to stimulate the imagination and the desire to make a personal connection of some kind. (208)

Abstract shapes and undefined or partially modeled areas act as “open doors” that pique our curiosity of what more there might be beyond the door’s frame, beyond the glimpse that the abstract element is suggesting. In “Intention, Meaning, and Substance in the Phenomenology of Abstract Painting,” Dale Jacquette writes:

[Mystery] engages our memory and imagination. The aesthetic value of such objects exists purely as a means to another end, to the pleasure of feeling our minds drift and focus, shift and concentrate, pursue associations that are occasioned by the experience of a work of art such as an oil painting that is at once connected with and dissociated from the ordinary visual world, to reach understanding or revel in ambiguity and confusion. (3)

Thus making the viewing of such a drawing or painting a very personal unique experience where the viewer wanders with their imagination. Walter Benjamin writes of two types of viewers: “the masses” who are often said to see art as entertainment and to thereby “seek distraction in a work of art,” and “the art lover who sees art as an object of devotion and views art with concentration.” Benjamin further explains:

…a person who concentrates before a work of art is absorbed by it; he enters into the work, just as, according to legend, a Chinese painter entered his completed painting while beholding it. By contrast, the distracted masses absorb the work of art into themselves. Their waves lap around it; they encompass it with their tide.

I find both these descriptions fascinating insights into how we experience art and how we connect with it. It is this interaction, whether it be being drawn into a drawing or 19 absorbing a drawing’s intangible qualities into ourselves, that I hope viewers of my imaginary landscapes experience.

Benjamin’s idea of an experience of absorbing the art into ourselves suggests that the art becomes a part of us, stays with us, is something that we gain. According to the American philosopher, John Dewey, works of art are not simply physical products but “refined and intensified forms of experience” (Grant 118). I find it interesting, this idea that the art is not only what is on the wall, the art is what we take away from it. It is what lives with us long after we have walked away. The object on the wall is merely the mediator, a catalyst, and an artifact of an interaction or of that which we gained from it.

I mentioned earlier of my interest that my drawings might give viewers a moment of being lost in the moment, lost in contemplation. Artworks have the potential of taking us to somewhere far away. When the marks or the colors hold us in a kind of timeless moment it can indeed become more about an experience as Dewey and Benjamin write of. The nonobjective paintings of Mark Rothko are famous for having this affect on viewers and it was central to Rothko’s philosophy (Fig. 10). Tamar Avishai, an art historian and lecturer at Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, speaks on her podcast, The Lonely Palette, of this experience in the episode featuring Rothko’s artwork:

[T]o fully appreciate abstraction, you need time and a comfy spot in front of the painting to sit with it, to experience it….[A]bstract painting is entirely about that experience, about giving yourself over to its lack of representation and focusing instead on how that nothingness, that lack of anything narratively specific to hang your hat on, illuminates those pulsing hues, or the dancing spatter of a Jackson Pollock, or, here, the gentle wash of color into color. Rothko perhaps put it best himself when he said that “a painting is not a picture of an experience, it is the experience.” (9:22 - 10:12)

And this is where we need the silence. Because this slow dissolve, this subtle pulsing, this wash of color, this depth, pulls your eye into a deeply gentle, meditative experience. This kind of active, quiet focus, like walking the path of a labyrinth, or tracing the circles in a Japanese rock garden, allows you to lose yourself…. (13:09 - 13:37) 20

Fig. 10. Mark Rothko, Number 14. 1960. Oil on canvas. 25.5”W x 27.2”H.

Fig. 11. Rene Magritte, Treachery of Images. 1929. Oil on canvas. 31.94”W x 23.75”H. 21

And this stillness is a powerful thing. It’s what you came for. The quiet gives you compassionate permission to unclench. You didn’t realize how much energy you spent keeping your eye in focus at all times until you’re given permission to slacken it….There’s a let-down, a release, an opening up. There’s a heightened awareness of your surroundings, of the physical landscape. Of the emotional landscape. Of your own thoughts. (15:09 - 15:49)

Magic of Drawing and the making of marks

I am not only interested in giving the viewer spaces to find their own images or associations, but also in getting past the mere surface of what nature looks like. In this section, I will explore how the drawing medium along with the act itself of mark making helps communicate the intangible essence of my subject.

Emma Dexter in “To Draw Is to Be Human” states that drawing, as a medium, is “balanced equally between pure abstraction and representation” (10). This fits well with my interest of drawing landscapes that have both of these qualities. The lines of a drawing are indeed themselves very abstract by their very nature, and yet, with lines we can draw and suggest images that are very representational. My works are an exploration of spaces between spaces and places, between the imagined and the real, and between the concrete and the abstract — a place where we can have space to dream. Being an abstraction itself while also able to suggest form and space, drawing as a medium highlights the liminality of my images.

The quality of magic in drawing is in the making of marks and the creating of shapes and images upon a surface. Whether creating a mark on paper, across the exterior of a rock or in wet sand on a beach there is something enchanting about just seeing marks appear when dragging a stick over a surface. This relates to what Dexter writes about in “To Draw Is to Be Human.” 22

Drawing has always been associated with magic ever since humans first depicted the animals on which their survival depended.... It is still very prevalent to describe drawing as magical: for a young child, the ability to conjure instantly the image of something (a stick-figure rendition of mother, a lollipop tree) at will is miraculous. With drawing, we never lose that sense of wonder. (1)

Walter Benjamin also writes about there being an inherent magic in art.

[T]he work of art in prehistoric times, through the exclusive emphasis placed on its cult value, became first and foremost an instrument of magic which only later came to be recognized as a work of art….(25).

Through the medium of drawing, I would like to reconnect with the magic that art was first a part of in the early history of humankind before it became about religion and about social or political issues. For artworks to have what Benjamin calls “cult value” as opposed to “exhibition value.” The value of an art piece is its existence, its presence, its uniqueness, and its quality of being handmade. I also appreciate how it feels when making a mark. I consider the choice of paper and how a particular paper receives the mark of charcoal. Paper has a certain texture that I feel when I am dragging a charcoal stick across its surface that varies from one kind of paper to another. It is a personal choice and makes the making of the drawing a richer experience.

The mention and appeal of the presence of magic in art was also something the Austrian painter and architect Friedrich Hundertwasser believed in and cared about. When asked, “What makes a good painting?” he answered, “If the painting is full of magic. If you feel some happiness from it, if it makes you laugh, or cry, if it gets things moving…. It should be that when it is not there you should miss it” (Rand 154). There are many forms or ways in which the idea or feeling of magic shows up in artworks. I would add that for me the magic is also when a drawing or painting creates the illusion of space, of depth, and of three dimensions. When the piece of paper becomes a window or portal into another place, a space that takes us away. The shapes, lines and colors add up to create something beyond themselves. The sum 23 of the parts is greater than the parts individually. Magic in a drawing to me is when something intangible is captured, something that creates a moment to feel the wonder of nature, to become engaged with imagination and to wander and discover something unexpected or strange and intriguing. For example, I am very drawn to the modeling of form, an illusionary “carving” of three-dimensional form from the flat surface of a sheet of drawing paper. It seems like magic to feel the roundness of something and breathe that feeling into the drawing and create a sense of space that extends back into the paper, creating a feeling of atmosphere wherein the forms I am drawing can exist and themselves move around in. With this illusion of space and three-dimensional form, the paper disappears and we become lost in the imagery.

Creating a Dream World, Finding My Own Reality Through Process

Next I will discuss my drawings being an imaginary dream world, a personal reality. I am intrigued by the idea that an image of a landscape, however realistically depicted in drawings or photography, can be seen as an abstraction in its flatness. With such imagery the three-dimensional world has been translated into a two-dimensional world. In this way a drawing is in itself a creation of its own reality, a flat two- dimensional reality. The Surrealist painter, Rene Magritte brought this understanding to everyone’s attention with his painting titled The Treachery of Images on which he painted the statement, “This is not a pipe,” next to the image of a pipe (Fig. 11). As Tamar Avishai explains in her podcast on the artist, “It’s like he’s saying, once we own up to the fact that art is a question of representation, rather than reality, we can abandon reality altogether. And maybe from there, we can probe the most experimental boundaries of how an artist can express subjective human experience, the unique perception of the world that we all share. And no artistic movement up to this point took this to heart more than Surrealism” (11:15 - 11:45). Furthermore, each of us as individuals has a unique individual perspective of the world, of the things we 24 see and experience. There is no objective reality. We all have our own perspectives and our own individual experience of what we feel is real to us.

When speaking of Paul Cezanne and his work, Tamar Avishai touches on this topic in another of her podcasts, saying of Cezanne how he “wanted to see if he could capture a scene that was ‘more real than reality’ because those apples, when you look at them, then turn your head, then look again, DO look different. You alter your frame of reference practically every time you blink. And if you’re working on a painting and you’ve got durable fruits sitting on a table and you get up to get a snack and then sit back down, you’re not going to see them the same way. The light has changed, your placement has changed, your looking has changed. So yeah, those apples are going to change too.” (12:48 - 13:25)

In my drawings, I am creating an imaginary world that can be said to be my own reality. It is a place where I wander and dream and see things as I want to see them. It might be said that I am creating my own reality, or it might be said that my drawings are a record of a personal reality that is just there, that I am not creating it but transcribing it.

Paul Gauguin is another artist who believed in painting his own world from a very personal perspective. “Art is an abstraction,” he wrote. “Don’t copy nature too literally. Derive from it nature as you dream in nature’s presence. Think more about the act of creation than the outcome” (Avishai, Gauguin podcast). Avishai further states:

Gauguin is suggesting that our own experience can actually change the subject—and furthermore that our experiencing matters more than keeping reality intact. Gauguin painted the dreamers and the dreams in the same canvas, on the same plane. He was an artist who privileged our lizard brains, our animal instincts, in his words, our ‘primitive souls,’ when we approach a piece of fine art. ‘Derive nature as you dream in nature’s presence’ is pretty much a gorgeous way of saying, basically, feel free to make it up, to ignore reality, as long as you’re living your own truth. But it also means, quite rightly, that our fantasies and desires color our 25

perceptions and blur the boundaries between actual reality, if such a thing exists, and the reality we experience—the one filtered through our perspective, the only kind of reality we can really ever live. There is something so soulful and forward-thinking in believing that painting can be an act of feeling as you paint, and painting as you feel, and that the observation of something can be synthesized with your own feelings about it. (17:44 - 19:10)

In 1891, he made the move to Tahiti, hoping to find an unspoiled paradise, and found, instead, that his imagined utopia was actually already pretty thoroughly colonized, with a native culture that was rapidly disappearing under the pressures of Westernization. But he painted it anyway. Not as it was, but as he wanted it to be. (15:32 - 16:00)

This summarizes well of what I feel and what I am doing in my drawings of organic forms and imaginary landscapes. In relation to this idea of painting what one wants to see or imagines is the idea of painting beyond the objective subject, being in tune with what that subject inspires in you rather than making record of its appearance. Robert Henri explores this when he states,“After all the error rests in the mistaken idea that the subject of a painting is the object painted.” (Henri 128) And again with,“Low art is just telling things; as, There is the night. High art gives the feel of the night. The latter is nearer reality although the former is a copy. A painter should be interested not in the incident but in the essence of his subject.” Henri’s reference to low art and high art is indicative of him living in what we now call Modernism, before our Postmodernist’s elimination of such hierarchies. I interpret what he is stating as being an encouragement to all painters to delve beyond the surface of things. Henri continues with a critique of a student’s painting: “Here is an emotional landscape. It is like something thought, something remembered….Reveal the spirit you have about the thing, not the materials you are going to paint. Reality does not exist in material things. Rather paint the flying spirit of the bird than its feathers." (Henri 265)

Relating the medium of drawing to this subject, Emma Dexter writes, “Drawing chimes with the needs of the moment, allowing us to dream an endless dream” (5). My choice of making drawings for this series, instead of paintings for example, 26 supports the idea of my drawings being a kind of dream or dreamscape, an imaginary place where there is no time, no rush. A place of quiet and wonder. Like dreams, drawing is very quiet, and temporal.

My practice as a metaphor of my life

In the way I approach drawing, a process that involves exploring and wandering, I see a parallel to my life. When I have dared to do something of a free nature such as travel or live in an overseas community, when I do not play it safe and do not keep all things familiar, is when I have the richest, most exciting experiences. I am attracted to the unknown and experience it as an adventure. When I volunteered to live overseas for a year I intentionally did not ask any questions about the place or what I would be doing once there, wanting instead to discover it as I experienced it. I only want to know enough about something to decide to do it, or in the case of a movie or book, to see it or to read it. Beyond that I avoid any information about the place or story. I welcome being lost in the moment, discovering things along the way. And so it is true of my drawing process. Many of what I consider to be my most successful drawings are those where I let myself try something I was not sure would work. “To dare not is to do nothing,” a quote attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, reminds me not to play it safe, as risk has rewards. It was this same approach that played a part in my decision to go back to school, to break from my day-to-day familiar routine that I had fallen into over the years and challenge myself with the unknown possibilities of grad school.

I entered the MFA program in search of “a concept.” The finding of such a thing felt continuously out of reach. The more I tried to “figure it out,” the more elusive and impossible it became, often increasing my feelings of being lost and without direction. When reflecting on my past years spent focused entirely on the craft of drawing and painting and never on developing any ideas of concept or a direction that 27

I might explore, it occurred to me that it was as if I had long ago built a boat on which I spent all my efforts to making the boat beautiful. I fitted all the joints perfectly, sanded the wood smooth, painted it with care, and attached all the accessories and hardware necessary for a proper boat. I gave my full attention to the crafting of, and the aesthetics of, the boat. Then, one day with my boat ready to sail, I looked out to the sea and realized that I had no idea where to sail. I had not spent any time studying a map or given any thoughts to where I wanted to go. I was without direction. I had a fine boat but was at a loss of where to go in the boat. I had learned how to draw but not why I draw.

During the first two years of my MFA program, I felt lost at sea, adrift. With every drawing, I wondered how it might be part of a concept of some sort. I could not see where I was going. Sometimes I became stuck, and it became a great challenge to keep drawing, to not overthink it. I did the best I could to carry on and to let go of this “wanting to figure it out.” It seemed that the idea was to draw and draw, and then only later to connect the dots. With this in mind I began to think of every drawing as being a “dot.” I told myself I am just making dots and later I will look at all of them and see connections.

It was during this time that I read Rebecca Solnit’s A Field Guide to Getting Lost. I felt a connection to the idea that being lost is not just wandering without direction; it can also be about being fully in the present, in the moment where you are. Here, Solnit references Walter Benjamin:

Not to find one’s way in a city may well be uninteresting and banal. It requires ignorance--nothing more,’ says the twentieth-century philosopher- essayist Walter Benjamin. But to lose oneself in a city—as one loses oneself in a forest—that calls for quite a different schooling.’ To lose yourself: a voluptuous surrender, lost in your arms, lost to the world, utterly immersed in what is present so that its surroundings fade away. In Benjamin’s terms, to be lost is to be fully present, and to be fully present is to be capable of being in uncertainty and mystery. And one does not get lost but loses oneself, with the implication that it is a conscious choice, a chosen surrender, a psychic state achievable through geography. (6) 28

For a while, I saw this search itself as maybe my concept. Certainly, that is what I am, lost. I have been for a long time, and, therefore, I began to see my drawings as a kind of mapping of my search to find where it is that I am going. Katharine Stout, in Contemporary Drawing, mentions drawing’s perceived ability to give material realization to thought, often spontaneously and without interruption. Stout also sees drawing as a physical “activity” (12, 13). I could see now my drawings being a direct expression of my thought-activity. Considering that the idea of being lost in my artistic practice, as well as throughout my life, might be my long sought after “concept” gave me a feeling of now having direction, of now no longer being lost. I liked the paradox of this.

When I am not here, I am over there or halfway in between. I wander, lost upon my way, along the way, between the real and the fictional. Between the representational and the abstract. My drawings become records, artifacts of wandering. Wandering is not knowing what may be next, what lays waiting to be found. It is slowing down, seeing what is there instead of racing past it. It is letting the mind amble about, along with the feet, to ponder and dream. There is a quiet excitement in the discovery of the unknown while getting lost in both place and time. Sometimes I am lost in the moment or lost in thoughts of the past. Lost in invisible spaces, in a world not here.

Drifting, dreaming, and searching, I wander in my imaginary world. This “other world” sometimes is a sanctuary, often a quiet space without measure of time. I am drawn to organic forms, atmosphere, and the modeling of form in light and shadow. They offer space to move about in and through, to explore, to feel a connection with nature and adventure. In many ways, I am a wanderer in life. And my drawing process involves wandering, discovering shapes, forms as a composition progresses. In the end, my drawings, when completed, continue this theme as they become images that invite viewers to wander, to become lost in the imaginary landscape of the paper’s marks. Thus, my drawings are born out of wandering and in turn become catalysts for others to wander. It seems often art plays this role, whether it is visual art, live theater, film, or literature. As Solnit writes, stories do the same. 29

Stories that make the familiar strange again, like those that revealed the lost landscapes, lost cemeteries, lost species around my home. Conversations that make everything around them disappear. Dreams that I forget until I realize they have colored everything I felt and did that day. Getting lost like that seems like the beginning of finding your way or finding another way, though there are other ways of being lost. (13)

Appreciating the Personal, the Human Spirit, the Imperfect

Before I write about my thesis exhibition, I want to write about my philosophy on art- making. We are not robots. We are not impersonal mechanical entities. I very much care that my art has the qualities of things which are hand-made and that it has a sense of the human spirit, beautiful in its uniqueness and its imperfections. My hope is that my love for line and form is evident in the marks themselves. Much as a work of literature has evidence of the author’s love of words. I also value that handmade artworks have a quality of one-of-a-kind uniqueness that sets them apart from mass produced products.

Jean Baudrillard in his work Simulacra and Simulations writes of how everything has become a copy of the real: photos, mass production, projects of images on TV, pixels on computer monitors, and phone screens representing reality but only copies. Reality TV, Disneyland, Facebook, computer games, fake grass, fake meat, synthetic fabric/ clothes. Reality becomes forgotten; hyper reality governs us more than the real.

Furthermore, Walter Benjamin states:

“In even the most perfect reproduction, one thing is lacking: the here and now of the work of art—its unique existence in a particular place. It is this unique existence -- and nothing else -- that bears the mark of the history to which the work has been subject. This history includes changes to the physical structure of the work over time, together with any changes in ownership.” (21) 30

“By replicating the work many times over, it substitutes a mass existence for a unique existence.” (22)

Living in this time, our lives immersed in the reproductions of all sorts to such an extent urges me all the more to contribute with my own work with something that is real and genuine and unique. I take to heart what Emma Dexter observes of how drawing is very human, has very personal, authentic, intimate qualities.

“Then there is the other, elaborately cultured aspect of drawing, not based upon a theoretical or philosophical understanding of what drawing is per se, but on the areas of human experience that drawing has come to be associated with; intimacy, informality, authenticity (or at least with authentic inauthenticity), immediacy, subjectivity, history, memory, narrative....Drawing is a feeling, an attitude that is betrayed in its handling as much as in the materials used.” (1)

While drawing, there are moments when I have become aware of such a switch within myself, experiencing the difference between feeling the inspiration of the piece while making marks and that of being more self-conscious of making a mark. When feeling inspiration there is not a self-consciousness of making the marks or putting down the brush strokes a certain way. There is instead just a drive to put down what needs to be put down, a response more than an effort. It can be a pure experience of process until the head sometimes jumps in and suddenly a mark becomes self-conscious rather than authentic. Being aware of this when it happens helps me to minimize it and has been a part of my practice. Because this difference does show up in the mark and can alter the feel of the piece. A mark put down with confidence looks and feels confident, while a mark made tentatively will feel unsure, unsettled. The same is true of a drawing that is overworked from too many attempts to “fix it.” Trying to make it look right risks making it feel wrong, labored. This is one aspect of what I consider to be the art of drawing, different from the craft or technique of drawing. Robert Henri addresses this distinction in the following advice he offered his students:

“The object of painting a picture is not to make a picture—however unreasonable this may sound. The picture, if a picture results, is a by- product and may be useful, valuable, interesting as a sign of what has past. 31

The object, which is back of every true work of art, is the attainment of a state of being, a state of high functioning, a more than ordinary moment of existence. In such moments activity is inevitable, and whether this activity is with brush, pen, chisel, or tongue, its result is but a by-product of the state, a trace, the footprint of the state.” (159)

I believe the making of something by hand is one of the factors that causes us to feel a connection to such an item or art piece. We feel a connection to it and through it we feel a connection to others, to the community of humankind. The human touch, the human spirit becomes a common ingredient that binds. Henri Focillon in his essay “In Praise of Hands” writes, (in regrettably outdated gendered language):

“Art is made by the hands....The artist touches, he feels, he reckons weight, he measures space, he molds the fluidity of atmosphere to prefigure forms in it, he caresses the skin of all things. With the language of Touch he composes the language of Sight.” (70)

I value the quality of hand-drawn lines, and how their irregularities, imperfections and subtle wobbles or undulations reflect and contain within themselves aspects of humanness, the antithesis of machine-made impersonal mechanical lines. Harry Rand in his book on Friedensreich Regentag Hundertwasser writes:

Hundertwasser contends that ruler-drawn straight lines make people sick because, not occurring in nature, they incessantly subject people to an irritation for which the organism is unprepared. In the modern city the insult of the straight line is relentless, and comparable to the assault of chemical carcinogens, of pollutants that cause fearful diseases. Hundertwasser says, “We are made up of cells, organically built up into humans.... So when these seeing cells perceive something that is alien to them, alien to organic forms, they transmit an alarm signal to the brain.” (37)

“The straight line is completely alien to mankind, to life, to all creation.” (40)

There is a life energy present in hand-made artworks, a sense of the human-spirit. This quality is also sometimes described as the piece’s aura. I value this feeling as well as its uniqueness, that there is no other thing that is exactly the same as it. 32

This quality of life is lost in drawings or in individual marks that are blended rather than left as a fresh, directly created mark on a surface. The same is true of paint: when paint applied to a painting is over-worked or applied without a sense of the artist having a feel or love for the paint itself, it is evident and will have a sense of deadness. Similarly, artworks will have a different feel about them when just produced for the market, the painter merely “going through the motions” but not with any feel or connection to true inspiration. When an artist’s work gets formulaic this is also a difference that appears in the work.

It is for all these reasons that I favor hand-drawn drawings or hand-painted paintings more than photography or digital images. I appreciate and have seen many fantastic photographs that I do fully enjoy, but to answer the question of why my preference overall is in the direction of drawings and paintings, or why drawings and paintings are important to me, it is because the human hand and spirit is more apparent in them, and I love those qualities in art and value the sense of connection they bestow.

MFA Thesis Exhibition

My Thesis Exhibition held at the Student Gallery South consisted of two-dimensional drawings on paper (Fig. 12). Most were charcoal drawings on watercolor washes, and others were graphite drawings consisting mostly of line. The drawings were a variety of sizes, ranging from 8 inch square to several that were 30 inches in length. Some of the drawings were identical in size. Included in the show was a set of four graphite drawings, absent of color, on white watercolor paper, each 11 x 15 inches (Fig. 13). These, unlike the rest of the drawings, were framed. All the other work was presented using magnets to float the drawings a couple inches from the wall on two- inch long white nails. This made the drawings vulnerable but allowed them to be in a more personal relationship with viewers as there was no glass or acrylic separating 33

Fig. 12. Weston Lee, Thesis Exhibition installation photo 1. April, 2021

Fig. 13. Weston Lee, Line Composition 1. 2021. Graphite. 15”W x 11.25”H. 34 the work from the viewer. Having no frames also avoided the compositions from visually being restricted or “held in,” and overall created an informal space with intention to support a feeling of intimacy with the mark-making and texture of the drawings.

I broke from the tradition of hanging the pieces in a straight row along the length of the walls. Instead I considered each wall as one large composition within which the drawings were positioned. The heights and spacing varied as I treated each drawing as a part of a greater whole, placing them on the larger “canvas” of the wall with consideration of their spacing with one another and with the outer edges of the wall. Additionally, they were grouped, often in groups of three, to encourage viewers to see connections between them and allowing each to be more than a separate individual drawing. Instead, elements within one composition would begin to relate and enrich what was in another nearby composition — perhaps by similarities of color or texture, for example — or by contrast (Fig. 14, 15).

In the first room of the gallery, I placed drawings that have more representational elements compared to drawings farther back in the gallery where the compositions progressively became more abstract and dream-like. The idea was that as the viewer wanders farther from the entrance into the gallery, they become immersed further and further into a dream world of undefined spaces and imaginary places. I also considered the placement of those pieces that are more of a micro-close-up of textured forms and the compositions that suggest a farther-back perspective. Although scale is intentionally open for interpretation in many of my drawings, it was a factor that influenced the placement of some of the pieces.

The lighting was fairly standard for gallery exhibitions with an interest in keeping the lights medium-low in intensity. I wanted the lighting to be in support of a contemplative space for viewers to feel a quietness that encourages one to let their thoughts drift to other places. 35

Fig. 14. Weston Lee, Thesis Exhibition installation photo 2. April, 2021

Fig. 15. Weston Lee, Thesis Exhibition installation photo 3. April, 2021 36

Through the process of curating pieces for this exhibition I gained clarity on the differences between one drawing and another, how to recognize when a particular piece belonged in the show or needed to be held out for inclusion in a different series with which it would be more consistent. Working with my committee in choosing the final pieces and making decisions on their arrangement was very educational. It taught me to see how one piece had similarities with others and how particular pieces when presented adjacent to one another could inform one another and have a positive influence on how viewers experienced the work.

Conclusion

The past three years of my study in the MFA Program has been a meaningful journey. During the first two years, I often felt lost or stuck as a result of purposely taking myself out of my comfort zone and challenging myself to do something different than what I was familiar doing. I found it very helpful when I read Lawrence Weschler’s book, Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees, in which Weschler interviewed the artist Robert Irwin who reflects on his experience of being lost and not knowing what he was doing along the way. It seems that it is common to not be clear on the next step when trying new things. One must just keep doing the work, like walking through a dark room and trusting there is an open door ahead. It is all about the process. Robert Irwin, speaking to Weschler:

You know, you have to be careful in taking these things I’m saying and working them into too clear an evolving narrative. There’s a danger in spelling these recollections out so lucidly that your reader gains the impression that at the time I knew what I was doing and where all this was leading in some sort of intellectual way. You have to make it very clear to anyone who might read your essay, especially any young artist who might happen to pick it up, that my whole process was really an intuitive activity in which all of the time I was only putting one foot in front of the other, and that each step was not that resolved. Most of the time I didn’t have any idea where I was going; I had no real intellectual clarity as to what it 37

was, I thought I was doing. Usually, it was just a straightforward commitment in terms of pursuing the particular problems or questions which had been raised in the doing of the work. (89)

Actually, to tell you the truth, I don’t have the slightest idea why I’m doing these things now, I’m doing them because right now they seem like the right thing for me to be doing. (193)

It was as if, when making art previously, I had been following a path through a landscape, a path familiar and clearly marked. And now, when entering the masters program, I was choosing to step off this familiar path into an unknown “landscape” to learn what there might be there to learn, to discover, to grow as an artist. But, as I have discussed in this paper, in the beginning I felt a need to have some kind of map to do so, I wanted to know where I was going before arriving. I wanted to figure out or know what my concept was in order then to go in that direction. That is one way artists work, to have a concept at the beginning that gives direction to their artworks. Such works can be called concept-driven. Through conversations with my professors and reading of other ways other artists work, such as Robert Irwin referenced above, I learned of another way; to not begin with a concept or what could be considered an “answer” but to start with only questions and allow my questions to be my lead. Such a process-driven approach to art is what became central to my work. Oddly, I was already very familiar with this idea and practiced it in non-art-making endeavors, such as in conversation with friends which I wrote of in my introduction where I fully did embrace the adventure of discovery when choosing to explore and be curious instead of just wanting an answer, and in travel where I have always welcomed the unknown. Although I stepped off the familiar path in art with enthusiasm, I suddenly wanted a clear direction. My experience thus was partially a re-learning, or a remembering, of embracing the unfamiliar as adventure, to be in the moment and open to finding what one may find, to explore without knowing. In all these ways my art has truly paralleled my actual process of finding my way in the making of it. I had not previously been aware of this disconnect but I appreciate this aligning of my art practice with how I have always enjoyed experiencing life in general. 38

I am interested to continue with the direction my most recent drawings have taken me, where line begins to have a greater presence, and through mark-making and layering I create a more dreamy abstract space (Fig. 16). A contemporary artist working in Seattle, Mary Ann Peters, makes large abstract line compositions that I find inspiring in relation to my current direction (Fig. 17). Many of her drawings are quite different from the one I include here but this one is of a series which has the line work and reference to organic flowing forms that I am interested in. I am excited to continue creating artworks whose process allows me to wander, discover, and experience the wonder of both mark-making itself and the fantastic-ness of organic forms.

39

Fig. 16. Weston Lee, Muted Red and blue with Triangle Forms. 2021. Graphite. 30”W x 22.5”H.

Fig. 17. Mary Ann Peters, this trembling turf (surge). 2017. White ink on black clayboard. 48”W x 60”H 40

Works Cited

Abram, David. Becoming Animal: an Earthly Cosmology, Vintage Books, 2011, pp. 268– 269.

Avishai, Tamar. “Episode 24: Meditations on Mark Rothko.” The Lonely Palette Podcast, 22 November 2017, www.thelonelypalette.com/.

Avishai, Tamar. “Episode 32: René Magritte's The Son of Man (1964).” The Lonely Palette Podcast, 28 August 2018, www.thelonelypalette.com/.

Avishai, Tamar. “Episode 1: Paul Cezanne's ‘Fruit and Jug on a Table’ (c. 1890-94).” The Lonely Palette Podcast, 11 May 2016, www.thelonelypalette.com/.

Avishai, Tamar. “Episode 14: Paul Gauguin, “Where Did We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?” (1897-98).” The Lonely Palette Podcast, 25 January 2017, www.thelonelypalette.com/.

Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacra and Simulations. Translated by Sheila Faria Glaser, Ann Arbor The University of Michigan Press, 1994. Originally published in French by Editions Galilee, 1981.

Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility: Second Version.” The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility and Other Writings on Media, edited by Michael W. Jennings, Brigid Doherty, and Thomas Y. Levin. Translated by Edmund Jephcott, Rodney Livingstone, Howard Eiland, and others, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2008. 41

Dexter, Emma. “To Draw Is to Be Human.” Vitamin D, Phaidon Press Limited, 2005, pp. 6–10.

Focillon, Henri. “In Praise of Hands.” Henri Focillon: the Life of Forms in Art, Wittenborn, Schultz, 1948, pp. 65–78.

Genn, Sara, and Robert Genn. “The Mystery in Art.” The Painters Keys, 5 Nov. 2018, painterskeys.com/mystery/.

Grant, Kim. All About Process: the Theory and Discourse of Modern Artistic Labor, Pennsylvania State University, 2017, pp. 35, 38, 118.

Henri, Robert. The Art Spirit: Notes, Articles, Fragments and Talks to Students, Bearing on the Concept and Technique of Picture Making, the Study of Art Generally, and on Appreciation, compiled by Margery Ryerson, introduction by Forbes Watson. Harper and Row, 1984, pp. 128, 159, 195, 265.

Horton, Derek. Beside the Lines of Contemporary Art: Drawing Ambiguity, edited by Phil Sawdon and Russell Marshall, I.B. Tauris, 2015, pp. 1.

Jacquette, Dale. “Intention, Meaning, and Substance in the Phenomenology of Abstract Painting.” British Journal of Aesthetics, vol. 46, no. 1, Jan. 2006, pp. 38–58. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1093/aesthj/ayj003.

McEvilley, Thomas. “On the Manner of Addressing Clouds.” Art and Discontent: Theory at the Millennium, McPherson, 1993, pp. 70, 71, 75. 42

McNiff, Shaun. Trust the Process: an Artist's Guide to Letting Go, Shambhala, 1998, pp. 13, 21, 27, 208.

Plotkin, Bill. Nature and the Human Soul: Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World, New World Library, 2008, p. 113.

Rand, Harry. Hundertwasser, Taschen, 1993, pp. 37, 40, 154.

Selk, Eugene E. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 43, no. 4, 1985, pp. 413–415. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/429907. Accessed 3 May 2021.

Solnit, Rebecca. A Field Guide to Getting Lost. Penguin Group, 2005.

Stout, Katharine. Contemporary Drawing: from the 1960s to Now. Tate Publishing, 2014.

Thomas, Lewis. The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher, Penguin Books, 1995, pp. 11–12.

Weschler, Lawrence. Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees: Over Thirty Years of Conversations with Robert Irwin. Expanded Edition, University of California Press, 2008.