Month: June 2025
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I started a new drawing project book tonight. It’s a 1976 Olympics commemorative book but that topic isn’t meant to inform the drawings I do. I like having something besides a blank page to react to and I’m sure in some cases the underlying text grid and images will nudge my drawings in interesting directions. I’ve posted a video to YouTube about getting started and showing me alter the cover and begin a drawing on the first page. https://youtu.be/Fy29waQDhr0?si=wH_TLDQ7Z6hHd-Ny
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When I say document, I mean it less in the “recorded for historical reasons” sense and more in the “just hold on to this for a little bit longer” sense. Holding the firefly of memory in cupped hands but knowing that it must eventually be released. I wanted to save my analogy and also clearly it is firefly season.
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Determined that standing in the dark of our yard trying to take pictures of fireflies is far less rewarding than just standing in the dark of our yard experiencing fireflies.
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10 years ago I started an online group art “zine” called Amateur Escapist. I meant it to be a series of themed issues but I got self conscious about it so there was only ever one issue. But every once in a while, I open the website and think, hmm should I do this again? http://www.amateurescapist.com
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The final drawing in my Openwork series. A couple different things on my mind starting soon. Made Ready, Davin Risk 2025
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A short video I made before making the final drawing in my Openwork series tonight. https://youtu.be/sGUvxolwblI?si=Z0UnjDYw0CPcAiIB
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This Masonite panel will be the surface for the last drawing in my Openwork series. There will be 30 drawings total and that number is somewhat arbitrarily set by how many of these dollar store panels I was able to find before they stopped stocking them. I’m happy with the number of drawings regardless and feel like it’s time to shift away from that path at least temporarily anyway.
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My drawings are almost never about one thing but this one definitely came from a place of deep frustration, anger, and sadness. People are being murdered daily and I am drawing. There’s a hard balance to be living a life of relative peace and be a distant witness to a diabolic genocide broadcast each day.
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We have a small cherry tree under a protective mesh bag and in the sunlight it becomes its own little world. It reminded me of this beautiful photo experiment by Diana Pappas and Tom Bland – https://pappasbland.com/17
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I recorded this flip through of my book work project I nicknamed “the ledger”. I made 149 drawings in this 90+ year-old insurance ledger starting in 2020. In this video I talk in real time about the project, some of the drawings, and patterns in my work that have continued after finishing the book. Watch the video on YouTube
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I don’t often start from dark or black ground but it definitely shapes the negative space in these drawings in an interesting way.
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What sometimes gets missed when people talk about AI and visual art is that there is this assumption that mimicry of style can replace real artwork. But despite the fact that many of us see artwork on screens these days, artwork still exists in physical forms and it’s hopeful point of connection is personal, tactile, and multifaceted. Even a simple piece of paper with a sketch will always be better than a tool that primarily can only output to screens. Of course systems can be devised that bridge AI output to physical forms but in its dominate consumer form, AI…
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I’m nearing the end of my Openwork series. I made this drawing tonight and I believe it’s number 27. I think it will be hard and somewhat freeing when this series finishes. I think it’s helpful to me create a somewhat arbitrary point where the series ends. In this case, the ending is based simply on the fact that I am about to run out of the dollar store Masonite panels these have been made on. I could continue and just shift the form but it feels better to end. Ending forms this higher level space around what will be…
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I make most of my artwork in single sittings and it’s something I have occasionally held against myself. But I have the most comfort and connection with making when I just sit down to start making something and I am done within an hour or less. I say hold it against myself because there are many artists that research, sketch, build maquettes and dummies, and more before then possibly committing to an approach. And then they may take hours, days, months, years to complete a single project. I can rationally know that every person’s practice and each medium is different…
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I’ve been thinking about inconsistent art practice recently. Consistency is something that receives a lot of attention in art making and it has obvious merits. The call to show up regularly for creative expression is valid. Prioritizing time for making in whatever form it might take is healthy. There’s also a certain pressure for artists to be consistent in what we make. A pressure to develop a recognizable style and to reliably produce new work. Even the well meaning consecutive 30, 100, 365 day art challenges place a value in repetition. These can be powerful in jumpstarting a creative pattern…