Artist's Albums - Robert Sinclair

Artist's Statement on Drawing

Generally drawing is perceived to be the most basic of the visual skills. It is simultaneously the most simple and profound of all the artistic mediums; yet it is paradoxically the most intimate of them all.Drawing gives us a glimpse into the creative processes at work. It is a window into each artist's thinking. It can also be the most telling in terms of artistic ability.Drawings' power comes from being so close to pure idea. Concepts when first emerging to consciousness are usually materialized through drawing.The appreciator/collector of drawing(s) thus has a doorway into the inner world of the artist. This audience that appreciates and collects drawings is amongst the most visually sophisticated. It takes courage and sensitivity to enter into another's private world.The Artist's Album is an ongoing series of drawings from some of my travels. They are, on the one hand, a recording of an event, a 360 degree view of a time and of a place. They are also the culmination of a lifetime practicing and thinking about the visual. They are about inventing with the mark making, about evoking this or that convincingly. They are about stimulating wonderment in an over zealously active sensory environment. They are about thoughtfulness and non-thought, about simplicity and complexity. In a world much probed and measured there is still much to wonder at.Sinclair, 2008

While at the Banff Centre during a residency Robert Sinclair meet and became friends with the poet Glen Sorestad, the following resulted...

The Song of Mount Rundle

             for Robert Sinclair

He is painting the song that he hears
in that moment when rock sheers sky,

when the sun relaxes its grip on the day
and evening brushes its delicate hues.

The song source is deep as memory is old,
and colours are yet to be seen;

but the song leaps to the gathering sky
and climbs where all songs become one,

where the ageless song of the mountain
merges with the spirit-dance of stars.

He is painting the song that he hears
in the moment his brush touches paper,

and the strokes are notes that sing
the multi-tinted movement of the night

meeting day. Rock and sky, sun and star
sing in his head, sing in his eyes,

sing the song through his fingers dancing,
dancing the song down from the stars

and the sun, down where rock meets sky.
He is dancing the song down to rest.

                       --  finis  --

From "Leaving Holds Me Here"  Glen Sorestad
Thistledown Press Ltd. 2001

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