It seems the time has come for me to blog, responding to the recent string of drawing exhibitions and panels that I have worked with/on. So here begins my first of many rants on contemporary art.

To preface this, I am a drawer. According to Microsoft Word, this infers I am “a storage compartment in a piece of furniture such as a desk, chest, or table that slides in and out and is usually shaped like a shallow rectangular box”. To be honest I like to think of my practice as an artist in terms of a storage unit for ideas, concepts and techniques (This as I hope you have already noticed, is a sarcastic play on the term Drawer as both defining a person who draws and a vessel for storing undergarments – amongst other things). It is due to this awkward phrasing of the word that it is so difficult to associate oneself with the medium. I myself have difficulty pronouncing my R’s. As a result I end up describing, in an excruciatingly roundabout way what I do as an artist – often I dream about how easy it would be to simply state “I am a Painter”, “ I am a Sculptor”, “I am a “Video artist”. In my assumption, it is drawing’s lack of an adequate (and pronounceable) noun that lends the medium to its considered state as merely a point of departure for other artistic disciplines; a sketch, draft, outline, proposal. Drawing then is never finite; it exists as a rhetorical medium in the arts.

Because of my work as a drawer (look to definition above), I was invited to participate on two drawing projects in November: moderator for a panel discussion on drawing at XPACE and Juror for the National Drawing Exhibition at the White Water Gallery.

Rather than moving in chronological order, I will begin with my experience as a member of the jury at the drawing exhibition in North Bay. I was lucky enough to have had help with this project, splitting the juror duty with fellow drawer Amanda Burk. The national call conjured up some exceptional talent including Sara Hartland-Rowe’s beautifully fantastical drawings depicting street/urban follies, and Liv Bonli’s strikingly minimal depictions of board and branch structures. Going back to my statement that drawing is never finite, the success of these works lie in their ability to utilize the propositional nature of drawing. These drawings do not settle on mere representation, rather they offer us a space for contemplation of the unreal and slightly peculiar.

If there is one constant amongst the drawings selected, it is their ability to be simultaneously critical and hopeful. All too often art (painting I am looking at you) that is critical is plagued by a sense of overt cynicism, while hopeful art (painting I am still looking at you) can fall into the trap of romanticizing. The drawings in Order and Chaos and the White Water Gallery Juried Exhibition seem to offer equal potions of both; their heads raised up high, acknowledging their critique, however upon closer inspection of their eyes you can read shinning gleam of hope.