From July 17 to August 6, "Pencilled, as it were" will be shown at the Elissa Cristall Gallery, 2245 Granville Street, Vancouver. Tuesday - Friday: 11- 6 pm, Saturday: 11- 5 pm. Telephone: 604-730-9611.
:: a description of the work :: The series, “pencilled, as it were” began with a statement found in a school textbook, “One pencil can write 50,000 English words or make a line 55 kilometers long.” (1) The double statistic prompted multiple inquiries; first about the drawn line and then about English words.
:: Making lines with a single pencil, proved to be quite straightforward. The lines were simply drawn across the page, one by one in much the same way as English words are written line by line. Together, the drawings “2.88148 km” and “2.87861 km” make a 5.76009 km line which is much shorter than the predicted 55 kilometers (or 34 miles).
:: However, the second inquiry: writing, was not quite so easy. Although, drawing lines and writing words are both forms of mark making; in the case of words, meanings and thoughts need also be considered. “Meaningful” text became important. The source essay, “The Modifications of Clouds” by Luke Howard (2) documents scientific observation similar to observing and measuring pencil mark length and word count. With the scholarly language of seventeenth century England, the text also chronicles clouds and their naming. The resulting drawings are: “11,449 English words about clouds” and “10,058 English words about clouds" (see image above).
:: “The Modifications of Clouds” records Howard’s research and reasoning in naming the clouds with Latin words: cirrus, cumulus, stratus, cirro-cumulus, cirro-stratus, cumulo‑stratus, and nimbus. The essay is a scientific study, yet it is surprisingly poetic. Many of Howard’s words and phrases endure and proliferate when relocated in art making. For example: Howard suggests that because clouds change form moment to moment, there is a “necessity for frequent observation.” In response a record of the sky as frequently seen through windows, between buildings and overhead has been observed, recorded and drawn in a coloured pencil drawing of “frequent observation.” Another Howard phrase “tracing the clouds” has lead to a “tracing” of the words for clouds as found on pages 5-12 of “The Modifications of Clouds.” In addition, the series’ name “pencilled, as it were,” has migrated from Howard’s original description of clouds “pencilled, as it were, on the sky.”
(1) Ackert, Patricia and Linda Lee, “Pencils and Pens,” Reading & Vocabulary Development 2: Thoughts & Notions, Second Edition, Publisher: Thomson Heinle, 2005. page 15.
(2) Luke Howard, Essay on the Modifications of Clouds, first published 1803.
