Guest Post, Mary Shindell: Inflection Point

Inflection Point

There is always the inflection point in a drawing–the point at which it takes on its own presence and becomes more than its content. There is also the point where others view it and it becomes their image. I know that if I create art, these points will occur, and I can work to control part of the process leading up to these points.  Ultimately, however, not all of it is mine to control.

Today in my studio, I am establishing another inflection point–a point at which everything changes and the art acts in a new way. I want to isolate this point in an attempt to describe it visually. At this point, the conventional tools and techniques of drawing will meet the new digital tools of drawing. They will meet in the scan of an intricately hand-drawn image that was created specifically for this point. Then, they will part ways like the lines flanking an inflection point on a mathematician’s graph. From this point on, the scan will only exist in the computer because it will become part of a digital drawing; the original paper drawing will be continued from this point by adding layers of ink and graphite–it will no longer exist as it did at the inflection point.

I want the intimacy and precious nature of drawing to meet the new order. At that meeting point, the scan of the drawing will become an enduring memory, a snapshot of the original curve ending and a new one beginning.