THE CELESTIAL CARTOGRAPHY SERIES

The first drawing was on a piece of scrap paper - an exercise in capturing a quickly passing sky out the studio door. Despite it's simplicity, the drawing captured me.  As I studied it I was brought back to my childhood, when my father would bring home armloads of scrapped paper from his office for my brother and I to draw on. Being a petrophysicist, these would be print outs of geological logs and topographical maps of the area. I didn’t know what these were at the time, but we adored them and would color them in and make them our own.

I began going through pictures of the sky I have taken over the years and drawing from them. Memories of the farm we lived on, and hikes by the lake and in the Flint Hills flooded me. These simple contour drawings of clouds and trees and water, became maps of my explorations. Each drawing was a meditation, and a deep reflection on a space I had passed through. And each became abstract - out of context it can be difficult to tell what they are exactly.

I have watched my youngest son color a few of these drawings in, just as my brother and I did as children. Watching my children grow and parents age, I am ever more aware of how fast the times passes. Our roles are quickly changing, and we are mapping new territory. 

"Titled, “Celestial Cartography,” we find contour line drawings that read like topographical maps without a legend for defining elevational changes, or direction. This forces the observer as Doveton states, to determine “which lines were clouds, which were water, and which were land.” They are clean, elegant, and remind one of a printout from a seismograph, or the heartbeat line of an electrocardiogram, beautifully transcribing the transitions and transformations within nature, into unobstructed, zig-zagging lines." -Alex Anderson, KC Metropolis