Lefty Drawings

This series of drawings happened from the time I broke my right, dominant wrist in February 2021. My right arm was in a cast for 7 weeks, much of that time in an above the elbow cast. Many people were both kind and helpful during this time, doing everything from dog walking to grocery shopping, bed making and making my appointment for my Covid vaccines. Anne Marie Rothstein, my dog walker was a special champ, picking me and my dog Trylla up 5 days a week, driving me to the studio, letting me work there for about 4 hours and then driving us home again. This was a godsend because in addition to COVID anxieties, there was a major construction project right next door to my house, and it was loud . The routine gave me a bit of normalcy in a fractured time.

Well, what could I do at the studio with my right arm in a cast? Left-handed drawings of course! It was an act of desperation that eventually led my printmaking in a different direction.  

With a large pad of tracing paper, black India ink , brushes, and dipping pens I went to work.

My  hope was merely to do something and to see what could transpire from the left hand that I didn’t know very well. I was good at throwing balls for my dog left-handed, and there are left-handed things to do on the accordion, which I play badly, but that was about it. My left-handed handwriting looked like a crazed 5-year old’s scribbles, with some letters even being written backwards. I wondered what drawing would be like.

I had little preconception of what would occur, but it was my practice to work and watch who and what arrived on the paper. I was beginning without intention. It was also High Covid, and I was reluctant to travel by public transportation to the art supply store, so another variable  of this studio game was just using the materials I had. Brushes of various of sizes and ink were soon joined by dipping pens for ink so that I could make finer lines. I was hungry for color and walked to a Michaels Craft store and got whatever they had for colored drawing inks. 

I tired of tracing paper and raided my flat files for woodblock prints that were never finished and coated them with washes of grey ink as a ground to draw into. The oil based I printmaking inks I normally use resisted the drawing ink in interesting ways and I followed what was happening on the surface to see what narrative and characters emerged.

Eventually my cast came off, hand therapy ensued, and the therapist encouraged me to start carving my wood blocks again. It was even a kind of physical therapy! Several of the characters have become parts of wood blocks and prints, and lefty drawing has become a useful way of starting new projects and summoning ideas.

MILES OF SMILES: From Drawing to Print