On My Father's Drawing Board 2017–

I began this series in June 2017 on the anniversary of my father's death in 2014. Dad purchased the drawing board when he was studying art in the late 1930s. The board was part of the environment in my father's studio as I grew up and I remember being fascinated by the random marks and doodles on it. As a child I was occasionally allowed to use the drawing board, and later I sometimes borrowed it when I became a visual arts student.

When my father went into care in 2009, I posted the board back to Australia. I believed it was quite solid but it arrived in pieces. I did my best to glue it back together but it remains quite fragile.

My father was a good draftsman but my interest is with the arrangement of things to create a type of visual narrative. I particularly enjoy making montages with a range of found and gathered materials; I think of them as object-drawings.

My father's drawing board has become a meaningful background for my object-drawings. The interaction of my arrangements with the marks that my father made conveys a feeling that we are collaborating.  

Ultimately I would like this series to be long enough to evoke the feeling of a visual journey. My intention is to explore a diversity of subject matter and ideas on my father's drawing board. I am playing with ideas that I think my father would have appreciated. That said, some of my images he may not have readily understood or accepted. The nature of our discussions regarding these artworks is something I enjoy imagining.