Drawing Kin | An Underground Portal

The long graphite drawing is coming together. It is an imagining of the interconnectivity of underground activities, what goes on in my compost bin and under grounds everywhere. It is built up over many layers and I have spent most of the past weeks building up marks and layers, erasing them and building them up again. I have started to frottage over some garden twine that looked interesting when I accidentally made an impression of it and the curly, meandering marks look good against my spiky lines and erasures.

The tension between construction and destruction in nature is careful and reciprocal as I hope it is in the drawing: the construction of marks and layers of expression balanced by removal, destruction and creating space for new. The debris is not to be discarded but to be celebrated as part of the tangles of activity…

I have been layering in lots of mark making to create a hive of activity and at the same time remaining mindful of the wholeness of it, the Gestalt. I hope to see it as finished as possible by Friday when I will have a look at it in one go at the Village Hall again and then I still have a week to punch the many holes and see if it needs anything else.

The final layer will be to glue on the rubbings, which will tie in with my first year work. The rubbings are further attention given to waste and this will have to be done carefully in stages to keep the drawing from sticking itself to itself.

Layers

• Pencil, carbon, graphite, black and white Stabilo Woody pencils and a rubber for the basic drawing

• Spray mount and rubbings

• Punched holes in waves

• Pins to mount the drawing to the wall

Presentation

I am hoping to have sufficient space to put the drawing on the wall but it may be that it is hung in a wave like format to create movement and also to save on wall space. It may be that the light shows in through the holes more and I may have to think about how to add light to the reverse of the drawing to allow for the light.