The musical sounds I hear of a pencil traveling over a paper surface are, to me, like a symphonic rhapsody.
After several decades of exploring architectural imagery with acrylic paint and hand-printed relief prints, I have chosen to return to my true artistic roots; studying my surroundings through the art of pencil drawings.
The soul of my hometown, Cleveland, Ohio, USA, flows from the gritty, graphite pencil…my life blood…and I’m in love with art again! So many images for my drawings are inspired by the industrial history of Cleveland’s smoky Flats, where steel mills, chemical plants, railroads, and river-traveling ore boats compete for attention. On the bluffs overlooking this laboring soup, the workers’ cottages, built by the sweat of early immigrants, are the scenes that command my attention.
As I travel the world, and compare the visual riches of other metropolitan landscapes and paradise-like rural venues, I am compelled to return time and again to Cleveland and other urban architectural and industrial gems.
Where can one find a better relationship between pattern, texture, light, and space as well as social sensibility than through the visual study of architecture?
The thrill of making those first exploratory marks on a blank page of what promises to be a complicated, symphonic arrangement of architectural treasures, resonates with my soul!
