Contemporary Drawing Practices

Saturday, August 16, 2025

Ruth Coffman, Student Work

Frank Porter

Tea stained cotton, sheer nylon, thread, fabric marker

79"x69"x22"

Memory and family are frequent subjects of my work, and in frank porter, I explore how I mourn and remember my grandfather. My grandfather died when I was quite young, and I have spent far more of my life without him than I did knowing him. With such few clear memories of him, each one is a treasure that I wanted to capture in this work. The sheer curtain hanging above is a shroud between reality and memory, pulled back for a moment to reveal what time does to everything. My fabric drawings are a collection of the few objects and moments that I retain about my grandfather: the house he always showed me how to draw, his can of diet coke, his old bb gun that my brother and I lost in the woods one day, a bluegill caught on a cane pole, a photo him when he was young. The sheer drawings are hazy versions of these things touched by time. Others memories float above, caught for a moment in the net of a dream. In this piece, I invite others to visit their own loved ones in the memory-spaces of their minds.

In process #1, using tea to stain the cotton fabric.

In process #2, drawing with fabric marker.

In process #3 - drawing with fabric marker.

Reflection/Notes:

I used tea to stain the cotton fabric. I wanted to use fabric because I felt the tactile quality and the association we have with this material visually communicates moments of nostalgia. I also wanted a sense of time and the layering of fabric allowed me to achieve this concept.

Sunday, August 10, 2025

Brandon Santiago, Student Work

Finding My Way

Paper, Fabric, Charcoal, Paint, Rope, Wood

Installed on the wall

3' x 5.5' x 2"

In Process:

Kariel Rivera, Student Work

Resilience

Digital drawings, printed, stitched with thread

30" x 26"

Statement:

My work explores the interplay between memory, healing, and identity through the lens of fragmentation and repair. I aim to communicate the beauty and complexity of healing, showing how fragmented experiences can unite into something uniquely profound and cohesive. This work invites viewers to reflect on their own journeys of breaking and rebuilding, where chaos and resilience coexist.

The drawing, Resilience, is a compilation of drawings that reflect a loneliness and isolation. The scribble marks are suggestive of anxiety and the turmoil of an unsettled mind. Many copies are torn apart and put back together again through the act of sewing, a sense of mending. The chaotic arrangement of sewn pieces, placed randomly and sometimes overlapping, mirrors the disorder of an anxious mind while embodying the act of repair and reassembly. The result is a piece that feels torn from a larger, unseen whole, reinforcing themes of disruption and transformation.

In Process:

Screen Shot of the digital drawings.

One of the many arrangements. 20" x 18"

Reflection/Notes:

I was inspired by kintsugi, the Japanese art of mending broken pottery with lacquer mixed with powdered gold. I am drawn to its symbolic resonance with the way painful memories can become integral to our growth and self-understanding. Kintsugi embodies the idea that the process of repair can create something more beautiful and meaningful than the original.

In the beginning, I planned to experiment with ceramic resin, painting, and physically breaking pieces to reassemble them. However, this approach felt detached from my personal experience. Shifting mediums allowed me to preserve the essence of fragmentation and reconstruction while expressing something more personal and emotional.

The project evolved further through an act of literal fragmentation. I printed multiple copies of these illustrations in varying sizes, tearing them apart and sewing them back together. Some reconstructed pieces combine fragments from different color schemes, creating new compositions.