“Desert Compass”

Unframed, Mixed media original figure drawing on Vintage Folder

14.75” x 9.5”

7/2022

$450.00 includes shipping

The folder figures begin as original figure drawings done at my Figure drawing group. A cache of manila folders from the 60's and 70's were donated to me by a retiring Albuquerque Public School librarian in the mid 90's. These bins of collage material sat in my garage until a few years ago when I decided to get rid of them as most of the image archives were plastic coated and not suitable for collage. While dumping the contents, the folders themselves caught my attention; I love the manila color, texture and thickness of the paper as well as the tabs and have kept myself organized in them since I was 14.

My art practice, pre-covid, included weekly figure drawing groups. Each week I created a handful of drawings from poses ranging 1-20 minutes. I go back to the studio, paint over, collage over and write over the parts that don’t seem to be working then I return to figure drawing and redraw, then cut, paste, paint, and draw and draw and draw until I get something that speaks to me. I never throw anything out. I work and rework until I discover a story evolving. The Folder Figures are a limited-edition drawing series of 50 that combine hand lettering with figures on vintage folders. I work on many pieces at once so any figure folder is years, possibly decades, in the making as I layer and rework.

I do not hire a model or manipulate the pose; I work with what is there (and what is not there). I may add the words in the bottom corner based on a song or overheard conversation, then years later add something completely unrelated. Eventually it all ties together to reveal a story. The story is what I am after. The light blue labels are handmade by the librarian and though I never pay attention to the file names themselves they usually play a part in the overall meaning of the piece. These drawings are never preconceived but spontaneously emerge from the unknown through a unique multi-layering process of breaking down and rebuilding.