Q: Is the universe really born out of nothing?
You call this nothing?!

Q: Is this a ginormous art company?

 

No! It’s a mom-and-pop business without mom! I’m on my own. Because I am creating, scanning, printing and selling art I don’t have the time for most social media. I’m not on Facebook, Instagram, X or Tik-Tok. If you want to publicize my art on those forums, I thank you! I am only available on email via the website, and have trouble keeping up with that. I’m deeply grateful that you might want to support a small business like this one and thank you in advance your patience. 

 

Q: Why aren’t prices cheaper? 

 

People who haven’t bought original art are unfamiliar with the years of preparation and hundreds of hours that go into the creation of an idea/artwork. If I asked even minimum wage for total time spent the prices would be astronomical. 

 

Printing costs have gone up significantly since the pandemic and it costs hundreds of dollars using high-res printing on archival paper. Interestingly, black and white is just as expensive to print as color! Framing can be cheaper but the custom framing most people will want for an original fine art print are very high, as well. For many of the pieces offered here the cheapest custom framing with cheaper eco glass ranges from $500 to $1000!

 

Q: How long did it take you to do this drawing?

 

This is the main question I’m asked. I can’t deny it’s a good one. I’ve tried a number of times to list exactly how long and where I’ve worked on a particular drawing. But I always lapse before it’s complete. 

 

There are several reasons for this. First, I don’t want to depress or frighten away those with little patience and a short attention span. Coloring these drawings will increase your attention span! These days even Sesame Street is only a thirty-second attention span. More importantly, how am I to “time” those periods where I disappear into the “eternal present” of artistic creation? 

 

While I’ll be interested in exactly how long it takes you to ink or color in one of the drawings once they’re available as coloring posters I’ve long ago abandoned charting this for myself. That doesn’t mean, of course, that I’m not keenly aware of how much longer certain larger drawings have taken me.

 

Q: How do you decide what research you’ll do for the composite knowing of a particular drawing? 

 

An excellent question. I tend to think for quite a while about each new drawing. Then I begin to follow my curiosity out into research that is directly or indirectly linked with the drawing that is forming in my mind. For example, seeing the mandala male puffer fish make on the seabed during mating might lead me to research on crustaceans. This might in turn help me decide to look into fish scales or coral formation. I simply pull on the threads I think of or run into until I have enough begin drawing. Sometimes, however, I just start to draw, and see what research it leads me to.

 

Q: What materials or devices do you use to draw?

 

Another excellent question. I have plenty of mechanical pencils, ink pens and colored pencils. But for drawing I often use whatever is present. I might use a bar coaster or a shot glass in a pub to draw interlocking circles or fractals. I have various compasses and a few templates I sometimes use. I might have other things in my backpack that are of use, like using a novel I’m reading to draw straight lines. Whatever is available is capable of much more than it presents at first glance. 

 

Q: How do you make decisions about what to color or ink?

 

Sometimes I may be working out a particular theory, like how adjacent colors affect each other, or how to make/stop an optical illusion. Each drawing both gives into and resists symmetry. This is part of the larger understanding of this project that life is Imperfection. Perfection has lead us down the bridal path of illusion toward what can never be and has warped the way imperfection is at the heart of our understanding of beauty (re-read Nat Hawthorne’s “The Birthmark”). 

 

When I venture out into moments of indecision I’m guided by what I call “informed intuition,” where I trust my long experience not just of making these drawings but the way I’ve made decisions in the rest of my life.