Serra-isms

Visual note taking (not art)        R Allen-Sherwood 2015

I recently saw an interview with the artist/sculptor Richard Serra where he talked about my two favourite topics - drawing and space.

The interview was done a few years ago, on the eve of a retrospective showing of Serra's drawings spanning over 20 years. Serra described his drawings as "space articulations". But he made a clear distinction between what he called his "visual notations" and drawings that were done to work through something in his mind. For Serra, only the latter could be called art.

Richard Serra Drawing 1*

I enjoyed the interview and many of his words resonated with me. Probably because I too, am dealing with the issue of expressing space in my own work even though I cam not a sculptor.. Perhaps it's a more ambiguous issue in my case.

Richard Serra Drawing 2*

One of my favorite moments from the interview came when, asked for the hundredth time as to whether his drawings were inspired by figuration or objects in real life,  a visibly annoyed Serra snapped back:

"I draw space, not image!" 

Hooray! My kind of guy.

(*Drawing 1  courtesy of J. Padgett Washington University)

(*Drawing 2    http://amesadeluz.blogspot.co.uk)

On-Off-On

"Appearing & Disapprearing"                R Allen-Sherwood 2015

My Zen teacher, the late Master Gudo Nishijima used to talk about the Instantaneousness of this Universe as a way to explain the true nature of reality...

What has stayed with me was his description of how every passing moment of our lives speeds by, flickering On-Off-On-Off-On-Off.....

It's taken many years to reach a point where I think I can now understand the meaning of his words.

Then again, I could be wrong..

I'm just glad the universe happened to still be "On" when I snapped the camera shutter yesterday.. Only just.