Woven Drawings — Emily Newman

Drawing an observed night sky begins as a visual documentation capturing the enormity of the landscape itself and leads to the contradictions of such a sky. Telecommunication lines crisscross the landscape, moving, blinking lights are traced from airplanes and wind turbines, and light pollution encroaches even in the farthest fields, pulling the vastness of the universe back to human scale. Drawing the night sky from direct observation stems from a need to leave the house, be alone, and independent from the confines of new motherhood. A desire to feel insignificant to the world is a welcome contrast to the all-consuming needs of a young child.

Observational drawing tends to describe both time and place and these drawings are as such. But they also reveal my interest in spatial dimensions, fibers, and mark-making. The contrast between small, hand woven landscapes and a subject described in distances of light years shows my interest in connecting these perceived disparate forms; pictorial space to actual space, a metaphor for connecting a people to a place, a Midwestern city dweller to a universal landscape.