A Photoshop-manipulated detail of the work to the left appears above on the header image of this site. I’ve finally gotten a chance to make a new scan of the original. I kept calling it a “smoke drawing,” having learned the technique in an art class taught by Tron Bykle at Fort Mason Center through CCSF a few years ago. The technique is actually called fumage (or a simpler variation thereof), wherein you hold paper or canvas over a lit candle or lamp to produce the dark shadows you see in the picture, a result of smoke collecting on the surface.
Fumage was apparently a surrealist technique, and I’m not sure whether the technique is to be purposeful or not, but the point of this visual exercise was to float the paper over the candle purposeless-ly and without looking (and taking care not to torch the paper to ashy bits), draw something out of its random effects in fifteen minutes. This is really the product of my one and only fumage-technique practice, but I’ve lately been quite attracted to the idea again, that a few more may show up here someday.
Smoke is a puzzle, or an unintended guest with whom you are forced to dialogue not knowing what he’s got on his mind. I get quite enthusiastic over activities that I hope will keep the mind nimble.