Butterfly Drawings
Alfa (day one)
82 X 72 inches, Colored Pencil and Graphite on paper
First work in a series of 26 pieces documenting the narrative account of an individual's passage through time, as he encounters various physical, emotional, and chemical obstacles.
Beta (day two)
87 X 72 inches, Colored Pencil and Graphite on Paper
Second work in a series of 26 pieces documenting the narrative account of an individual's passage through time, as he encounters various physical, emotional, and chemical obstacles.
Charlie (day three)
86 X 70 inches, colored pencil and graphite on paper
Third work in an ongoing series of 26 pieces documenting the narrative account of an individual's passage through time, as he encounters various physical, emotional, and chemical obstacles.
Delta (day four)
88 X 70 inches, Colored Pencil and Graphite on Paper
Fourth work in a series of 26 pieces documenting the narrative account of an individual's passage through time, as he encounters various physical, emotional, and chemical obstacles.
Echo (day five)
89.5 X 70 inches, Colored Pencil and Graphite on Shaped Paper
This is the fifth work in an ongoing series of twenty-six pieces, the Butterfly Series, documenting the narrative account of an individual’s passage through time as he encounters various physical, psychological, emotional, and chemical obstacles. Each sensory element that he comes in contact with—whether a consumer product, surreal image, real or imagined person, or location from his memory, drug, or medication—affects how his life unfolds, one sentence at a time. Like a Markov Chain, his life accumulates meaning through random yet predictable experiential moments, each a consequence of what came before.
Charlie 1A (tim)
71 X 48 inches, colored pencil and graphite on paper
Character Tim from drawing "Charlie". Describes the way he enters into the larger narrative, albeit via a somewhat unreliable narration.
First extension drawing that outlines the way in which a side character comes to interact with the Butterfly Drawing's main character. The narrative may or may not be reliable or true.
Lenny
65 X 39.5 inches, colored pencil and graphite on paper
This drawing is an offshoot of the Butterfly works. Lenny was a character in one—the kitchen boss in a hospital. I actually knew a Lenny, who was my real-life boss at the Noble Hospital kitchen in Westfield, MA. He always played the lottery. In this drawing, I was interested in the ways in which children learn about societal operations through word-based math problems. My son, who was nine years old at the time, often brought home these types of problems, which are convoluted and stretch their narratives to fit the mathematical problems being studied. Because of this, the stories in these problems are often based in everyday life but are elaborately concocted. These math problems also embed themes of morality in their formulation, usually through the capitalist exchange of money and goods.
With this framework in mind, I decided to create my own math problem based on a working-class person’s desire/need to purchase an object signifying upward class movement. Lenny plays the lottery and puts his winnings towards the purchase of a new Corvette. As he wins, his losses accumulate, negating these winnings. In the end, Lenny is at the same place he started—his labor was fruitless, and overall class stagnation is clear: he was playing a zero-sum game. Visually, I wanted the pattern to vibrate like a lottery ticket might, optically pulsating. Each lottery logo is sourced from a different state, which, if connected, would form a map of states (those with the most aggressive lottery programs) associated with the perils of the lottery as a means of class suppression.
Some notes on the Butterfly Drawings:
I've been thinking recently about the Butterfly series (large-scale connected works) as a way for me to connect drawing to tapestry. Tapestry in terms of scale, verticality, and the slowness / intricacy of the woven visual processes - like when I first saw the Unicorn Tapestries at the Cloisters I was floored by their density. Relatedly, I'm thinking of the tapestry as a complex interwoven story or series of events. I like that duality as it relates to drawing images today, and after making the printed accordion books (on books page), was thinking that each work's translation into book form is vital as a way for them to be handled or 'read'. The scale of the original works hopefully requires something closer to looking, and they're only viewable at that specific time while in front of them, but when the story is condensed into a book, it might be more read anywhere, even in private - like chapters or pages of a novel. I also just love experimenting with the book as form..// I'm also interested in how the works can reflect our times in different ways - since I can make only around 2 or 3 per year, the content of the drawings is always relevant to what's happening politically or socially now, and the images and symbols reflect that. But when viewed as a group, I hope that sense of time is condensed in the way a video game or movie condenses time and space. I mean, I hope they work independently of one another, but thinking of even a small group together is exciting for me. // In terms of composition / movement, I see them more like Rube Goldberg machines or marble drops... those marble games when a marble drops down a convoluted path finally hitting bottom. In the drawings, I see the character as moving, literally, from top left to bottom right, across a field of obstacles, and then into the next large piece, where his movement continues. It's like gravity. But also the idea of inevitability - he is moving through experiences which affect his path, but the end point will be a place of rest, and is already decided / defined, but we just can't see it. Like it's fated, predetermined, or something... also like a movie plot, or novel's character arc.