Drawing Ground 7

2019, minerals, red pigment, shell gesso, silver, kozo on linen

40” x 40”

Drawing Ground 2

2019, minerals, clay, shell gesso, sumi, silver kozo on linen

40x40" (in private collection, La Jolla, CA)

Drawing Ground 1

2019, minerals, cochineal, gold, silver, shell gesso, kozo on linen

40” x 40”

Drawing Ground 6

2019, minerals, indigo, shell gesso, kozo on linen

40” x 40”

Drawing Ground 5

2019, minerals, silver, shell gesso, kozo on linen

40” x 40”

The Drawing Ground series represents an exploration in building surface with Connecticut quartz and granite foraged from various sites around my studio and up in the Berkshires. A studio ball mill gives me the ability to self-pulverize, and levigate (wash) these hard minerals for the initial stages of my work. 

I am physically “drawing ground” from the earth and, in some cases, the foundational grounds of the work build in such a way to reveal surfaces that appear to look “drawn”. This occurs through a process of layering and washing back layers of diverse pigment particles. I am carefully guiding the slow build-up of marks on the bottom surface so that they are intentionally multi-directional: a method I call educated or contolled chance. I have no interest in using commercial texture grounds that (in my experience) blindly build the surface as decorative elements.

I no longer use toxic reds (cinnabar, vermillion, cadmium) in my studio, so the vibrant reds in this series are synthetic, man-made and aluminum based.