Tag: Charcoal

I & Eye

Charcoal on paper. 21″ x 15.5″. 2004.

I drew this during a summer semester at SCAD in Savannah.

Rastafari say “I and I” where the rest of us would say “we” or “us”. The belief underneath it is that there is no separate speaker and listener, only the same self showing up twice. It runs parallel to In Lak’ech Ala K’in, a Mayan phrase usually given in English as “I am another you.” Two different traditions, the same idea: oneness, and the sense that the person across from you is not really across from you.

I was discovering that philosophy around the time I made this, so I named it accordingly.

Drawn in 2004, photographed for archival in 2026, and shared here for the first time.

2003 Charcoal Trees

Charcoal on paper. 18" × 24". 2003.

I don't remember making this. I would have been a junior in high school, in AP Art. That is about all I can tell you about the origin.

Pulling it out of storage earlier this year made me look twice. My first reaction was not that this was particularly special. Then it grew on me.

Part of what got me was the composition. There is no reference point in the piece, no horizon, no ground, nothing that tells you which way is up. I could have hung it upside down just as easily. I looked at it both ways and chose this orientation almost as a mini creative expression.

The other thing was recognizing my own hand in it. I have a lot of work from different periods, and when I look across it there are consistent threads: bold lines, compositions that push against the edges, a certain directness and sloppiness in the mark-making. This piece has all of that. Even without remembering making it, it is clearly mine, clearly in the same family as things I was making before and after. That recognition is what grabbed me. It did not feel like something I had discovered; it felt like something I had made, which is a different thing.

Photographed for archival in June 2026. First time it has been shared.