With this pandemic and quarantine, life as we have known it has changed. But I am not much for socializing, gallery hopping. We ate out occassionally. I guess an artist’s routine doesn’t alter too much, up in the studio most of day isolated. Focus has changed for me though. Can’t sit at the hospital seeing and drawing in the hallway, feeling part of something , filling up cheap sketchbooks with impressions of walkers. I have a lot of ideas for linocuts and monoprints with those sketches on hold right now. Currently intuitive marks on paper with ink and watercolor have taken over lately since last June. These drawings are short hand intuitive blindfolded journeys, with a nib, holder and bottle of ink. It’s just a kick seeing where they land, lifting the blindfold, blinking from the sudden light and …It is interesting to invent techniques to keep it fresh, finding or making new tools to advance the ink. I start often with shish kabob skewers dipped in ink lately. It adds freshness and surprise to making a line. I have some control by twisting , slapping on the paper and sliding the bamboo sideways and forward. It is what you do after the mark, where the next one goes, how the paper slurps up the ink. What I start a piece with somewhat determines where is might go but not always or necessarily. If I start with hash marks , pen and ink, it determines the mood maybe or the magnetic pull, north, south, east or west. The bamboo has a looser more spontaneous indication, but can slow it down with nibs or speed it up with brush. The imagery or result must somehow come together as a whole. Sometimes it gets away from me but mostly if I stay focused can pull it together. But what do they mean? I think most emit a sound or promote a feeling if they are any good. A literal meaning is obscure. You may see figures, an imaginary machine or a strange landscape. The process may determine what imagery may or may not pop up. Is it subconscious, something in my psyche? I don’t know. The title may draw your imagination in a direction, but it comes to me later on and is not connected to the process of making it. The viewer must make up his or her mind as to where it takes them, if anywhere.