Some Strings Attached 032 Drawing

How do you define your work? Contemporary drawing. I usually make a point to let people know my work is all hand drawn and I don’t use any computers in the process. These new works are all Micron ink drawings on Bristol paper. Visually they look like swatches of plaid fabric with moments of unraveling. Why did you choose fabric as a subject matter? I have a lot of connections personally to fabric, specifically plaids. The work is both a celebration of my personally identity as a gay Mexican-American artist. My mom is a seamstress and introduced me to sewing and fabric at an early age. She worked in a sewing factory to make money for herself and to give to her family while they were immigrating into the US from Mexico. I also attending Catholic school, where uniforms and plaid patterns are used to make everyone feel equal. I find it interested how uniforms can form or cover up an identity. When we start to figure out who we are as young people and even as adults, we have to factor in so many influences from family traditions, economic status, gender, sexuality, culture, geography, etc. And we are constantly weaving this personal fabric of identity. Sometimes, it’s not clear or can be partly unraveled and worn out. My drawings of fabric plaid textiles attempt to celebrate this conundrum of life. Can you talk us through the process of creating one of your pieces? I travel a lot and was away from the studio for long periods of time. I decided to bring along a sketchbook and pens with me to play around with drawing while away from painting. The very first pieces looked like college-ruled paper. I began to disrupt the expected format of the lines. Changing the direction and planes. This led into grids and eventually plaids. Initially, I was trying to make perfect plaid textiles, then I hit turbulence on a plane and messed up a drawing. This was the moment, I found the unravelling component to the work. There was something beautiful about the mistake. The textile looked as if it was falling apart. So, I started to manipulation that very notion. In the series, Some Strings Attached I approach each piece one at a time and make very few conscious choices, sometimes it’s color, angles, density, etc. I try to let the drawing figure itself out as I make it. I don’t always know what it’s going to look like, but I start to guide it based on moving away from previous drawings. I never use pencil and don’t write down the mathematical formulas. I sort of draw in rhythm to the plaid. For instance, I lay down a base grid, then start to fill in each thread one at a time. I sort of go into autopilot, but as soon as I get comfortable, I usually find the moment to disrupt the piece with an unraveling. The first drawings only had subtle moments of unraveling. Now, I’m trying to push the boundary of this, you’ll notice some are really out of control and chaotic. It’s all very intuitive and organic in design. I go in with confidence, curiosity and excitement- straight with pen on paper! I recently began making time-lapse videos of me drawing. Aside from seeing my hands holding the pen, it looks exactly like a digital printer. They are kind of fun.

Drawing:Ink on Paper

Original:One-of-a-kind Artwork

Size:9 W x 12 H x 0.1 D in

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