A door is a wall, a knob, a step. It locks, it shelters, dictates and directs. How often do we abridge its consideration to a symbol, and overlook the ritual that delivers us and welcomes home? Its interface shapes a habit that shapes a person.
To look at a door is to see a hand and an introduction.
A portrait wants to express the quality or character of the individual, through more than blatant signifiers of say, wealth, or superficial caricature. It is always a struggle, and especially so without the help of props or context.
Through intention, intuition, and close observation, collect a matrix of marks which better pick up on the nuances of expression and posture of subjects in their natural work element. Summarize them into an image of the habits from which a portrait of the character emerges.
It’s been such a long time since I made this series, and I don’t really want to talk about it as an architecture project, but as a memory. The Matisse Cut-Outs show was in town, and my professor, the late Diane Lewis, insisted that we see the show, and do all our work in cut-outs. I spent hours on hours layering bristol with painted acrylic shades of black, white, and grey, just to cut them out into squares and rectangles and arrange them with pins and tape on a gridded square of foamcore. It was the most insane way I have ever drawn. I loved it very extremely, and I have never looked at the representation of space quite the same.
I walked in late one day into a rant Diane was having with herself about Ambivalence vs Ambiguity. I don’t know how long she had been going on for, but from the moment I walked in, the unplanned tirade continued for about an hour, as the class stood around drafting desks and misc furniture and stools around her listening. I’ll never remember exactly what she spoke about for so long, but I know this now— Ambivalence is looking at a drawing whose careful, self-aware consideration in the making cause it able to be read two, three, or more compelling ways. Perhaps ways you never even planned for. Ambiguity is striving for ambivalence, but using vagueness, laziness, an idea that if one can make something vague enough, then maybe someone will believe there is meaning in it.
This became a Tibetan Buddhist chapel. Not being religious myself, I cherish the rare moments I get to step into holy spaces. Ask anyone who has been in a church with me— I cry nearly every time.
I found my local service at a Chinatown YMCA a couple of blocks away on a Thursday evening in a classroom with low ceilings led by a Lama who escaped Tibet thirty years ago at the last moment he could to bring his religion to a place where he could practice it freely, apparently downtown Manhattan with a translator at a YMCA where the smell of chlorine permeated the hallways and a book club meeting took place across the hall next to a business seminar. It was beautiful. I cried, old news now, and then I ate scallion pancakes shared after the service and spoke with the Lama through his translator. They invited me back with open arms. I never went back, and I wish I did.
What with everything there is to build, I don’t draw much anymore. I will post drawings here as I find them.
