I’ve been thinking about mental health as it intersects with my ability to make art. People often comment one of two ways about my drawings: they’re either they’re interpreted as a sign of obsessiveness, punishment, anxiety—or, they can be soothing, peaceful, devotional. Ten years ago, I was offended by the suggestion that the drawings were symptoms of anxiety. But anxiety and contemplation share a ruminative quality, do they not? That’s the torture of anxiety and the comfort of a spiritual discipline: there’s a focal point one returns to, over and again. So what’s the difference? Choice, maybe. A practice as an act of will versus one that sneaks in unbidden and sticks around too long.
Put another way, sometimes the drawings are about practice and sometimes they are the practice. When I am overwhelmed and crave the compression of structure, making drawings as part of a many-years-long series feels not just possible when other things feel impossible, but grounding as well. It’s somethin…