Headache Drawing

My conceptual drawings for the New York Times and others often involve combinations of unlike things. A human head and the common screw inhabit different contexts. We use metaphor to make the leap, establish a meaning. I sketched this for a magazine article but never used it. There is something wonderful about common tools. They have elegant shapes refined by long use. The shapes are adapted to fit the hand of the user. Tools are also brutally efficient, which makes them apt for brutal topics. We use them as metaphors to describe pains and harsh experiences. Sometimes I draw tools as the beautiful, functional shapes they are, but they are not gentle, however smooth and useful they might be. I drew these faces first and kept them in a folder with other pages of faces, and when I drew several screws one day among some other household tools I thought of the unhappy combination. I was trying to build a metaphor. I don't suffer from headaches, but I know people who do. The arthritis in my right thumb feels more like a nail than a screw, without the holy implications. There are a host of holy artifacts and paintings depicting Christ's wounds. I'm not sure if they hang on apartment walls ironically or as an admonition.The most famous wounds are probably those arrows stuck into St. Sebastian, more famous as borrowed by George Lois for his Muhammad Ali cover of Esquire. The cruelest tool is the handgun which has become a very American piece of interior decoration. Old revolvers possess an iconic beauty. Screws less so. An art director would probably ask me to add color to this drawing of heads and screws but I think the gray and black and white is more suitable.

Drawing:Pencil on Paper

Original:One-of-a-kind Artwork

Size:12 W x 8 H x 0.2 D in

Delivery Time:Typically 5-7 business days for domestic shipments, 10-14 business days for international shipments.