5850-6 (#2) Drawing of City Airport
Artist
Mary Preston
(American, born 1950)
Datec. 1978
MediumPencil, paint on paper
Dimensions19 1/2 × 30 in. (49.5 × 76.2 cm)
ClassificationsDrawing
Credit LineGift of John Hilberry, 2015
Object numberUAC6435
Description"Drawing 5850-6 is a working drawing for a wooden piece that was built that same year. As an aside, my father was an air traffic controller and worked at City Airport for a number of years." Mary Preston 5-18-22Artist Statement
Shadows interest me. I used to keep large blank sheets of paper up on the wall in my first studio in the Forsythe Building; the expressway went by my windows at eye level. The sun or light would dance around on the wall. I would chart the path of the sun by making tears in the paper that stuck out and up so shadows were created throughout the day. The shadows varied depending on the season. I started drawing only the shadows. The grids grew from shadow watching.
I was trying to work off grids that could represent just the moment of seeing and then the idea that things move on mathematically. Also that things exist before we see them and then move on out of our sight. I wasn’t thinking about the grid in terms of positive and negative numbers but more like a flock of birds that build from one, gather their numbers, swoop through the air and disappear.
While I worked I didn’t stick to one thought. Some of the thoughts were private, some thoughts were spiritual, some thoughts were about people and circumstances. I would also attend to the look of the work, the color, shapes, texture, voice, action. I used different types of paper from a variety of sources including a dumpster behind an office building nearby. I would sketch on paper bags, blueprints, scrap paper, and really enjoyed working on watercolor paper because I could sand it to soften the feel. When I worked with wood, I would sand until it felt correct/done. I had a mental visual plan for most of the work I did with wood. I would sketch ideas and shapes and keep working until I knew the dimensions of the finished area and the quantity of the parts that had to be whittled into shapes like propellors or corkscrews. The wooden pieces started on paper.
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