This is a drawing – or a couple of drawings, I guess – from a sketchbook that my friend Dom gave me. It says 2014, which must be accurate, but I’m sure that she gave me this sketchbook some years earlier than that. I’m not quite sure when. So I probably had it around for a little while, and then got around to drawing in it. I can remember drawing in it, in Venice, before I moved downtown (LA). That was in 2013 when I moved down here (I’m still living in downtown LA) so, I would imagine that maybe I began drawing in this sketchbook in 2012 or 2013. And then, it just took me a little while to complete it. It doesn’t have a lot of pages, but I have the feeling I began drawing in it – then inadvertently set it aside (maybe when I moved?) – and then at some point (2014?) I picked it up again, and probably finished it quickly. That sounds right.

This is the first sketchbook where I was intentionally trying to avoid any suggestion of recognizable imagery. So it was kind of a game that I was playing, visually, to see what I could draw that would not suggest an image. And, of course, human beings recognize patterns, and so we’ll see a pattern whenever we look – we’ll see an image in almost anything. And so it was a tricky game to play, because as soon as I would see a pattern, I would have to stop or divert it or try to avoid creating something that would stand in the way of the ambiguity I was attempting to achieve, I guess. So I think these two pages were fairly successful. It was an interesting project, and I think that the drawings in here were a good experience, a good learning experience. And I kind of like them. Just looking at these two, I think I should try to find this sketchbook and look through it. I think it’s just over on a shelf across the room from me. I should find time to look through it later today.