Book 46   Drawing on Drawing   Leach, J and Penn C. (2009) (Fig. 45). Drawing on Drawing. Unique collaborative artist’s book. Drawing, collage, painting, text, sewing. 34 Pages. 27cm x34cm x 4cm, 34 pages.   Book 46.  Collection: Jane Leach.

Jane Leach is an artist I met at the Garrett Artists Group.  She is a very accomplished draftsperson and as we had had a conversation about recycling old drawings, this became the basis of the two collaborative books we began.  She gave me fifteen of her old drawings she was willing to part with, and I gave her twenty three mixed media works.  The intention was to make something of all the discarded images.  There was no theme or narrative to the resultant books, rather they are about one artist’s creative reaction to another artist’s work.

Paul Klee (undated) said  “in the final analysis, a drawing simply is no longer a drawing, no matter how self-sufficient its execution may be.  It is a symbol, and the more profoundly the imaginary lines of projection meet higher dimensions, the better”.  Leach uses anything to make her drawings; collage, feathers, fabric and traditional mediums.  I introduced her to sewing lines as mark making.  I could find no theme to the images, so I decided  to make a book about drawing.  I created a character Amelia, the silhouette of one of Leach’s dolls. She asks questions on the nature of drawing through the book, reacting to the images she is presented with.

-