For a couple of years I carried a tiny brown sketchbook with me and an ink pen. Every time I get a moment, I would put dots on the pages. After so many dots, images start to appear to me and I gravitate toward the image, little by little. This is often how I work, very slow, very methodical. Each dot is placed carefully. Even though the image is mostly random and often abstracted, there is order to the placement of the dots after the image appears to me and I’m chasing that image. The size of the pages in the sketchbook is 3x4 inches, however, it still takes me weeks to get an image to the point when I think I’m “finished” and moved on to the next page. Sometimes I would go back and forth in between pages. At some point I decided that the moment I put my initials on the page, it is considered “done.” Otherwise, I think I would just work on it for years. I’m not sure if that is borderline obsession or not. I think of this process of creating art and images “the ordering of chaos,” or as I often refer to it in previous articles, “taming the chaos.”
Eventually I have a collection of these ink stipplings. I made prints out of them and mounted them onto back boards, which I then sealed with black gloss. The prints are also glossed as well. This is done in a similar fashion as my circular totems so that they can be held as well as hung on a wall or propped on a shelf or desk. So these can also be totems of sort, with a bit more abstract images so that viewers can imagine their own tranquility to escape to. We all need a place to escape to every once in a while. Art always provides me with that escape. I hope it can do the same for you.
-Dominique
