|
 On
my first visit to the Pepper Tree retreat I was immediately fascinated, and
overwhelmed, by this felled, yet alive, ancient pepper tree. In this calm and
nurturing place, a tree so central and spiritual, silently perseveres and
thrives. It contains the continuity of existence, its crumbling and deeply
reticulated old trunk is host to new trunks and a host of vigorous young sapling
branches. I kept circling the tree for what seemed like hours, each step
presenting a new braiding of sunlight and shadow, texture, movement, warmth and
refreshing coolness. After numerous passes I felt compelled to take out my
camera and recorded over two hundred images. I had to draw this tree. I
immediately realized that the task would be impossible during my short stay, so
the photographic images would serve as my fixed observation points, snippets of
time as sources for hands’ work. I chose twenty. These images had to be the
completing elements to my “Graffite” suite. In the year’s-time that it took to
complete these drawings, I was guided by my initial inspiration, calmly letting
my eyes see and my hands move. In drawing these works, pulling the intricacies’
of texture and evanescent light out of the black white sheets of paper, I used
more than twenty various-shaded pencils and no eraser. Amazingly, the more each
sheet was covered by pencil marks, rather than dimming the whiteness and
overtaking the paper, the dark graphite allowed each sheet to glow with an
increased radiance. |
