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You are here: Home / Drawing / The Pandemic Pause Drawings, A Benefit Sale for Fair Fight

The Pandemic Pause Drawings, A Benefit Sale for Fair Fight

June 3, 2020 by Iskra 2 Comments

Origami crane pencil drawing by Iskra
Origami Peace, ©Iskra Johnson, graphite pencil drawing on paper, $350 (SOLD)
Pandemic Pause | New Directions

Since the pandemic lockdown began two months ago I have been working on a series of drawings. The original impetus came from my ongoing project, #100DaysOfTheSpaceBetween, introduced last month. Although the project also involves photography and other media, I decided to use drawing as the foundational practice. In this strange time, cut off from family, friends or social contact, I have sometimes floundered. The isolation of confinement has thrown me into emotional states surreal in their intensity, and the quiet absorption and focus of drawing has become a calm oasis in my days.

As the solitudes of the pandemic have segued with shocking speed into the pandemonium of a June aflame with flash grenades and tear gas I have questioned, as many artists have, the relevance of their art in this time. Social media demands a simple story, an allegiance to one side, and the embrace of slogans with no nuance. I reel in horror at the videos of George Floyd’s murder and wonder if I should drape a black tarp over my Instagram account? For how long? Do I stand with the rioters? The protesters? The police? Or is it possible to stand in a place where I can see from all points of view? Who gets to decide?

These are questions I’ve been asking my whole life. I grew up immersed in politics. At six I was handing out leaflets protesting racism at the local grocery, and I walked my first civil rights march in 1963 when I was nine, carried through the streets on a tide of hope with my mother, singing We Shall Overcome. Has anything changed? Yes/No. Have the conversations changed? Very little. Inequality runs even deeper, people are still shouting, and political factions still take no prisoners. What is different is the evolution of consciousness that emerged and ran parallel with the political movements that began in the 1950’s: Yes/And. We can feel the violence and the pain of what goes on in this world and we can also hold onto what is beautiful and individual and try to make that bigger, even if it starts very small. Change can happen through legislation or blunt force, or sometimes through the simplest discovery of common ground, one shared moment at a time.

Art, Meet Politics

In that spirit I am offering this set of Pandemic Pause drawings for sale, with 30% of the proceeds going to support Fair Fight, the organization started by Stacey Abrams to protect the right to vote. When people say “nothing has changed” or “we have no power” they forget that only 58% of the population voted in 2016. That’s leaving a lot of power and change on the ground. Stacey Abrams has been involved with voter registration and electoral reform for more than a decade. In 2018 she was the first African-American woman to gain a major party gubernatorial nomination in the U.S.. She narrowly lost to Brian Kemp, with evidence suggesting the loss was due to voter suppression. Abrams has built a powerfully effective organization since then, focused on protecting the vote. I would be glad to send contributions towards her efforts and the hope for change, one vote at a time.

Woven Twigs Drawing by Iskra
Woven Twigs, ©Iskra Johnson, graphite pencil drawing on paper, $350

 

About the drawings

My tools have always been charcoal and ink, and until two months ago I had done almost no drawings in pencil. I have no idea why I suddenly reached for one thin reed of 2 B gray and kept going. I’ve never had the patience for the medium, but suddenly all I have is patience, an unexpected gift of the pandemic. As I’ve looked back in time, I think these drawings may have started 46 years ago, in a class at Cornish School of the Arts. “Terminal Drawing,” was advertised as the last drawing instructions we would need for the rest of our life: our minds would be so transformed that we would never take another class. I was skeptical then, but now I am not so sure.

At Cornish I learned in one remarkable afternoon when all time stopped and the air was completely silent, how to draw in silverpoint. Stephen Hazel showed us how to prepare a sheet of paper with a fine white ground, hone and hold the stylus of metal, and then how to breathe, look up at our subject, and look down, drawing a fine shadowy hint of form across the page. I cannot remember how to play the violin, guitar, or piano, or how to conjugate German verbs, but something about that one-hour lesson with a piece of silver stayed embedded, hidden but not forgotten until now, when the pandemic pulled me back into a forgotten world.

While I was at Cornish I lived in a studio apartment looking out at a Russian church. I told time by how the light curved across the gold and blue domes and when the choir loft opened its windows. In a good year the church would make repairs, and I could watch for months as men stood on ladders and laid gold leaf. For a week after my lesson in silverpoint I drew the elegant curves of the domes, and the shadows of the ladders leaning against them. And when the drawings were done I never touched silverpoint again.

Divining Branch, pencil drawing by Iskra
Divining Branch, ©Iskra Johnson, graphite pencil drawing on paper, $350

The sense of that time has returned as I’ve been looking at the space between now and then, emptiness and form, quiet and noise. I am using the pencil as though it is a rod of silver, and when I get lost I ask for advice from Ingres, Hans Holbein the Younger or Charles Sheeler. I began with the woven vines I saw on my walks, then the intervals of branches and sky, and the delicate shapes of camellias falling in my garden. Each drawing is completed in about three days, and the work is done as much by walking away as it is sitting and covering the page. Like watercolor, graphite is delicate, and is easy to overwork. Walking away saved many of them from my own misguided impulse for perfection. Coming back after hours weeding, walking, or obsessing over the news I could see them clearly and know what to do next.

This is now day 65 of #100DaysOfTheSpaceBetween, give or take what feels like a lifetime. With Seattle still in Phase One of the Lockdown I do not know yet when I will be showing in a gallery open to the public. In the interim I hope that this offering of work done in contemplation and peace can bridge the space between art and politics, and support those on the front lines doing the hard work of uniting our country in the electoral process.

Each image is done on an 11 x 16” sheet of vintage Moleskine. The cream colored paper has a luscious fine grain that picks up the slightest pressure. (Click each image to view larger.) The drawings fill anywhere from half to two thirds of the page, and may be matted as desired. The signature is at the bottom of the page to allow freedom to crop. The sizes and the tone of the pieces fit well with the Ikea Hovsta frames in maple. Drawings can be shipped but if you live in Seattle I am happy to meet you at my studio or deliver within the mainland of the city (not unfortunately West Seattle…..).  Because this is a benefit sale I am not listing in my Etsy shop to keep costs down. Prices listed are before sales tax and a $15 flat fee for shipping within the U.S.. Please contact me by email iskra(at)iskrafineart.com to make purchase through Paypal, Venmo or check. My hope is to send at least $1,000 to Fair Fight to protect the vote in 2020. The sale will last until July 5th.

Windshaped, tree drawing by Iskra
Windshaped, ©Iskra Johnson, graphite pencil on paper, $350 (SOLD)

 

Magnolia drawing in Ikea Hovsta frame
Drawing in Ikea Hovsta frame

 

Magnolia Blossom drawing by Iskra
Magnolia Blossom, ©Iskra Johnson, graphite pencil drawing on paper, $350

 

Camelia, ©Iskra Johnson, graphite pencil drawing on paper, $350
Camelia, ©Iskra Johnson, graphite pencil drawing on paper, $350

 

Arrangement in Urban Light
Arrangement in Urban Light, ©Iskra Johnson, graphite pencil drawing on paper, $375 (SOLD)

 

Architecture of Memory, drawing by Iskra
Architectural Memory, ©Iskra Johnson, graphite pencil drawing by Iskra, $450 (SOLD)

 

Shipyard Structures, drawing by Iskra
Fremont Shipyard, in Silent Light, ©Iskra Johnson, graphite pencil drawing on paper,$450

 

Under Wraps truck drawing by Iskra
Under Wraps, ©Iskra Johnson, graphite pencil drawing on paper, $350

 

Lock and chain drawing by Iskra
Lockdown, ©Iskra Johnson, graphite pencil drawing on paper, $400

 Drawing States of Mind,  a moment in the studio, April 19th 2020               

Perhaps you get to a point where you cannot tell if you are prisoner, survivor or liberator. You get lost in the negative space between the links in the chain and forget about the key taped to the back of the drawing that might just let you out. In the interim perhaps you go and listen to the president talk about liberating three democratic states from the tyranny of being careful and avoiding breathing on people who unbeknownst to you had asthma or were older than they looked and could die next week because you breathed on them. Or you place a back order for ZINC, vitamin C, batteries, chive seeds, and Costco’s house brand of albacore tuna fish which is back-back-back ordered because apparently it’s recommended in the uncut version of Apocalypse Now as essential food you should have in your pantry. ⁣
⁣
You do all those things, then you come back later and the drawing changes and you have changed just in that long detour of not drawing and fighting the guilt of not drawing. That guilt was needless, pointless. St. Atocha, patron Saint of Prisoners, stands just outside the gates with his basket, wearing his adorable blue cloak and dark eyelashes. You have to remind yourself of the shortest prayer in the English language which is just one word: mercy.

For purchase contact me at iskra (at) iskrafineart.com

To read my latest writing on Medium check out Optimist in Training from the Isolation Diaries. Keep your eye on the light!

Optimist in Training
Optimist in Training, ©Iskra Johnson, $400

Filed Under: Drawing, The 100 Day Projects Tagged With: #100DaysOfTheSpaceBetween, art and politics, Fair Fight, iskra drawings, Isolation diaries, Pandemic art, Silverpoint drawing, Stacey Abrams

Comments

  1. Jere Smith says

    June 5, 2020 at 7:14 am

    Delicate and beautiful drawings, Iskra. I wish you well with your ambitious project.

    Reply
  2. Kris Fulsaas says

    June 9, 2020 at 12:44 pm

    Iskra, how wonderful to find what you’re working on! I thought of you this year when I’d heard of your mom’s passing—my thoughts were with you then, as now. Your pencil drawings are gorgeous! And the organization you’ve chosen to support reflects who I remember you to be.. Blessings!

    Reply

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Study of place, Volunteer Park Conservatory. I sta Study of place, Volunteer Park Conservatory. I start my morning pages with barely formed questions: 

What is a dream? Is a glass house safe or waiting to be broken? What is the effect of layering and repetition, a note repeated more and more softly without elaboration?
I am getting ready to start a new photographic-bas I am getting ready to start a new photographic-based series that I’ll be working on for the next six months. A friend here on Instagram gave me these praying hands years and years ago. They are quietly gaudy, and awful and simultaneously completely wonderful. I see them every day when I wake up in a house that I will confess is filled with devotional objects. This image is composed of two photographs, the sculpture and a street kiosk. When I walk down the streets, I cannot resist documenting kiosks, particularly when they are empty. The shredded strange paint residues and the battered metal frames are just waiting to be re-purposed as though the entire street was my personal goodwill junk department. Or you could call it a library. My cross training for the series is reading Virginia Woolfs stream of consciousness, novel, Mrs. Dalloway. Virginia Woolf’s writing gives an artist permission to own their interior world. Of course, letting the exterior world in on the secret can be quite a task. That is, what studio time is for…
I am thankful today for the symmetries of friendsh I am thankful today for the symmetries of friendship, even when they are asymmetric; for the guidance of those in the temple, who have practiced for years and send us their notes and their breathing lessons; thankful for the leaf that my friend saved for me of all the leaves in her neighborhood and thankful to the man who came yesterday when my back had laid me flat to sweep and to blow, as he noted in his documentation, 95% of the leaves in my garden, into piles then compressed with military precision into small liftable bundles stacked like muffins under the eaves. Now we can look out at the spare empty spaces. Feel the freedom of silence and space between branches. Rest, as growth goes quiet and invisible in the best growing season of the year.

May your Thanksgiving be bright✨
Artist Reception at SAM Gallery tomorrow, Seattle Artist Reception at SAM Gallery tomorrow, Seattle Art Museum First Avenue level, 2-4! Hope to see you there for our group show celebrating 50 years(!) This piece is called Water Kimono, a reverie on the ever-changing patterns of light on water.
My Narnia My Narnia
Last night I tried to get through more than 20 min Last night I tried to get through more than 20 minutes of the Golden Bachelor. It was Pickleball-date afternoon. The Golden Bachelor, truly a lovely man to observe and listen to under normal circumstances delivered this line: “Pickleball is a regular part of my life. Any woman who is going to share my life must also share Pickleball.” 

God help us. I’ve never been able to hit a ball with a paddle or a sock or a bat or anything else. Combat sports, like music, are abstract. No matter how much I pre-visualize the zen moment, the ball somehow remains in the air unrelated to my weapon of choice. I want to see the next Golden Bachelor rewritten for painters. “He said, fingering the smear of cadmium on his eyebrow, “Painting is a very big part of my life, and any woman who marries me is going to have to live with Painting.” Will he also say “I hope she paints too?” And we’ll have a full time maid and cook? Or will he say “She must be able to bring me my pipe and my slipper at the end of the day. And take the dogs for long walks alone while I try to decide the color of the sky?”

Feel free to write the script below.

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