This was a still life exercise in college, and was my first successful foray into the realm of charcoal. The instructor suspended by a wire from the ceiling a large translucent garbage bag filled with coats, shoes, mannequin parts, and other various items; and lit the bag with spotlights. It was an exercise in Chiaroscuro (the interplay of light and shadow in a drawing or painting), using charcoal as the medium. As I worked for hours without taking any breaks, I began to enter into a kind of meditative state; I began to see other things in the plastic bag. My charcoal and eraser served as instruments of interpretation rather than replication, and I chose to allow their appearance. It was my first exercise in letting go as a visual artist.

I’m fascinated by the idea of psychic photography, the notion that restless entities are wandering about waiting to be “captured,” and I was lucky enough to have these images reveal themselves to me.

Charcoal on paper, 2009