Portal

The latest drawing in my Iceland series began like this. In my journal I wrote:

Two days ago, I began a new drawing in the Iceland series. It is of a black hole between two towering rocks — pillars of lava — perhaps three times as high as a six-foot human being. The rocks are in the long, uplifted major rift whose name is Almannagjá, at Thingvellir.

I really struggled with this one. I remembered what it was like to actually be there, and it was so hard to capture that feeling.

Even at nearly a yard across, the drawing is too small. Anything would be too small except a life-size representation, and that is impossible. I have to struggle along with this, and do my best.

Yesterday I rubbed out all the detail on the two sides. It’s necessary to focus the attention on the blackness, on what is not there rather than what is.

(Please click on the image for a larger view.)

This is how it ended up.  I'm hoping to do a relief print of this same subject, too, greatly simplified.

(Please click for larger view)

I also took a photo of all the drawings together so far. I think -- I hope -- they're starting to add up to something.

 

 

Comments

[maria]

Thank you for sharing this with us. It's a portal into your process too. Amazing to see this awesome picture emerge through the stages.

[-s]

Collectively, the drawings start to work together as a single work - the different images speaking to each other, repeating images and gestures that are never quite identical, but rather expand on the themes that run through them. Do you think of your work that way? Would you want to?

[marly youmans]

Yes, you need to start thinking about a show, Beth! You're going to have an interesting, highly-unified body to show the world. Plus you could intersperse with mounted text pieces about Iceland. It would be wonderful.

[Alisa Alering]

There is something quite brooding and portentous about this drawing. I could easily site a story there. Is it wrong that I see faces in the lava towers on either side?

I also appreciate the picture of them all together. Iceland is a place I've never been, but --ah, the mythic power! So much strength and boiling in these pictures combined.

[Kat]

I like the contrast in the grouping of this image and the one above - both of stone, but so different in tone and feeling!

I've been enjoying reading about your creative process in drawing, and I agree that these - and the writing about Iceland - are creating a something greater than the sum.

[Jean]

"It’s necessary to focus the attention on the blackness, on what is not there rather than what is" - and that's exactly what this beautiful drawing successfully does. I think this is indeed both a culmination and a portal to more, and perhaps that more could be some very special combination of the drawings and the words, a show, a book, a video, all three...

[Robbi Nester]

They're wonderful. They are like clouds. I can see all sorts of things in them.

[Anne]

They seem to speak about strange life forms living within the earth. Wonderful drawings.

[sewa mobil jakarta]

Very nice, thanks for sharing.

[Dick]

These are wonderfully powerful, Beth. The impact of monochrome in the right hands, whether photographic or drawn.

[marly youmans]

Interesting that stories and faces come to mind--they did for me as well. It's interesting how Icelandic landscapes bring Tolkien to mind... perhaps here more strongly because you have a portal.

[Rachel Barenblat]

Gorgeous, Beth. Wow.