THINKING THROUGH DRAWING: PRACTICE INTO KNOWLEDGE

THINKING THROUGH DRAWING: PRACTICE INTO KNOWLEDGE 35

During a lifetime, nearly everyone does some
kind of drawing, even if it’s no more than directions
to a party, making shapes in the sand with a finger
or a toe, or scribbling daydreams while listening to
a panel discussion.
Drawings come from drawings, but they usually
need to be about life, in some way, for anyone else
to care.
Most of what I think I know, I know from hav-
ing drawn. I often use drawing to verify the truth of
things. If an object, idea, daydream, pattern, place,
or experience can be drawn, it makes more sense to
me, and can verify that I have experienced it. Draw-
ing something into a drawing, draws it out of me.
The Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in
Maine significantly influenced the way in which I
think about drawing. Preparing to teach there for
the first time, I felt obliged to think about drawing
as a craft from which images could be formed.
I developed a preference for drawing toward,
rather than from, phenomena. I saw that represen-
tational images could be made to emerge from a
confluence of drawn lines, and that is what I have
been working at ever since.
The Basic Principles of Drawing, from which
to make all drawings – representational, figural,
symbolic, personal, non-representational, abstract,
decorative, schematic, diagrammatic, physical,
perceptual, expressive, or any other – begin with,
and from within, the dot. The liveliness of a line is
its primary reason for being, so a bundle of lines
in action have their own story to tell in advance of
whatever else they appear to be. Intensity of feeling

can be realized through intensity of form. Actions

precede observation, observation precedes reflec-

tion, and reflection stimulates imagination, inter-

pretation, and meaning.

The drawings I prefer reveal some evidence of

graphic life, regardless of the objects from which

they were drawn. The appearance of life in the lines,

however subtle, provides those drawings with a feel-

ing of more than the sum of the parts, similar to

how we feel about ourselves, as being more than the

sum of our parts. We originate and end in perfec-

tion, and are also embodied beings, so I like draw-

ings about embodiment too.

My drawings begin as drawings about drawing,

using traditional techniques with pen and ink on

paper. The lines can stand up straight, lie down flat,

circle around, scribble around, wiggle and jump,

scrunch up, be rough or gentle, be thick or thin, and

have any variety of relationships with other lines.

Each line is an idea in itself, with a beginning, mid-

dle, and an end – just like us.

I want my lines to reveal the rhythms, gestures,

pressures, speed, and life of the hand that made

them, as if drawn by nature, if nature drew.

The basic techniques are mixed, mingled, and

juxtaposed in an effort to make a drawing that

appears to represent some aspect of the physical

world. Each drawing is made from the inside out,

leaving a trail for others to follow from the outside

in.

A line implies the coming together of two

planes, or any two things, or events, so every line is

already charged with implication. We may not see

Drawing Drawings

Michael G. Moore