Versus

These two pictures were lucky finds that I got in Portland, lucky because I found them on different days, in different drawers. All of this luckiness led me to have pictures of two sides of baseball game fans. I love all the white sunbrellas, the bored little kids, the deep shadows under the bleachers. In the studio right now, I'm piecing together photographs I took at home and I really like how the cutting and pasting encourages me to deviate from truth. On the drawing I'm doing right now I'm trying to figure out how much information is essential and how much can be omitted. In the pictures above there is no evidence of a baseball game besides the tall metal cage in the middle and the fact that people are sitting in bleachers to watch something-- you can't even see the field. For the drawing I just started, of a kitchen ceiling, I'm trying to figure out if I really need to include the light fixture and the place where the cabinets meet the ceiling, or if I can just let this huge drawing of a ceiling stain speak for itself.

I think (work with me here), that these pictures kind of summarize the editing process I enact when planning a new drawing-- I try to figure out how to illustrate a story without being literal (for example, without showing the baseball field), then I try to imply a tension (the facing bleachers) and figure out how to work with what's left, what kind of rules I want to make for myself, how to make something that's smart and interesting to look at. And let's be honest, I also like these pictures because I think baseball is a great sport, especially baseball in the 30's and 40's, when these pictures were taken. It's a game with so many contradictions-- it's formal with uniforms and rules and dirty with sand and swear-words, it's a slow game with fast-paced punctuative interuptions, it's two teams, but each player is incredibly vulnerable and alone when they're up to bat.