Drawing is a space

Not something I do but a place,

A place I go to where I know and am known....

For as long as I can remember I have drawn! There were times, I can recall, when, if I hadn’t drawn for some time, my hand would begin to register an urgency to find a pencil and make a mark. Drawing has many functions…it can record a place you have been to and there is no doubt that such drawings can unlock memory as nothing else can, particularly if done in situ. Drawing can also record feelings, daily emotions – some years ago, I used abstract drawing to record a diary.

The endless fascination for me with drawing in recent years is the exploration of different drawing tools and the discovery and use of these brings a whole new dimension to drawing.

But the main focus of drawing in my present body of work is to explore how drawing can record ‘sound’. Transferring the sonic environment into visual imagery is fascinating, not to mention endlessly challenging. We are so used to a visual landscape from which we get all our information, all our joy and appreciation of the natural world, but, in remaining fixed in this space only, we stay outside as onlookers only. The urgency of climate change and the demand for us to protect our world is requiring a deeper connection.  We need to begin a different relationship with our earth.

I use different techniques in the exploration of ‘sound’. I find that just staying with the pencil doesn’t always allow for new discoveries to happen.