Early in the Pandemic I revisited a sketchbook from 2015. It was filled quickly, as I recall, partly because at the time I was keen to see how sheets of frisket might be used to mask ink drawings and then apply acrylic paint to them with a brayer. But more importantly, there seemed to be a lot of imagery that needed to get out. Many of the spreads, in one way or another, feature figures isolated – in caves, in boxes, passing through in canoes, in museums – former dinosaurs and Rembrandt and Delacroix and Vincent’s postman Joseph Roulin. All of this long before Social Distancing became a part of our societal lexicon.

And then suddenly, in 2020, this sketchbook and its themes from five years earlier somehow felt relevant, like little bits of precognition. Apparently, ideas and drawings are a little bit like viruses: They enter this world and then just wait around without reason for a moment to assert themselves. And then they do.

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In May 2020 I published this sketchbook from 2015 in it’s entirety (including the blank spreads in-between images) under the title ISOLATION. It’s part of a growing library of titles published under the auspices of WORDS & PICTURES PRESS, a physical print initiative started as a sort of antidote to all of the imagery I share on social media websites.

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WE'VE ALL GOT A LOT OF THINGS ON OUR MINDS

Ink and acrylic in Moleskine sketchbook, 16 3/4in X 11 3/4

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*Ghost pages in-between images with bleeding ink from previous/next drawings.

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FORMERLY A DINOSAUR

Ink and acrylic in Moleskine sketchbook, 11 3/4 x 16 3/4in

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REMBRANDT SELF PORTRAIT (1658)

Ink and acrylic in Moleskine sketchbook, 16 3/4in X 11 3/4

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