People sometimes ask me why I draw what I draw. It’s a good question although I’m not sure that I have a really good answer. Sometimes I just draw whatever happens to find its way to the blank page in front of me. There are limitations – I’m not an accomplished (trained) artist so I draw what I can draw and that’s what ends up on the page. Other times, I give myself drawing “assignments” – for example, I’ll go get breakfast at The Dome (spinach pie with a fried egg on top) and draw the various people that come and go as I eat. Sometimes friends ask me to draw certain things for their magazines or comix.

Mostly, though, I draw because I enjoy the act of drawing. It’s fun. And it’s (for me) a form of active meditation. Indeed, the Meditations on Peace series was born of that realization. Once I realized that drawing is (again, for me) a form of meditation, I committed to doing a thousand Meditations on Peace. I’m about one-fourth of the way through that project.

Often I’m unaware of why I’m drawing what I’m drawing. During the three months that I was between homes (living in various places) I drew over fifty drawings of buildings. It took someone else to point out to me the obvious relationship between my life circumstances and my choice of subject matter.

The way I draw also happens to work very nicely as a brain stimulator. I do an initial pencil drawing with my left hand and then go over it (in ink) with my right hand. That way, my drawings are a product of both my right brain and my left brain, and, in fact, this process forces those opposing “sides” of my brain to work together in a cooperative manner.

But is it art? I really have no idea what “art” is other than a meaningless social construct that has no validity or utility outside of the art establishment. I like the idea of art without boundaries and life without definitions. Indeed, the Ten Commandments series is an attempt to re-define morality in a light-hearted manner. OK, but do these drawings qualify as art? You decide. Create your own definitions and decide what fits. If there is a secret to life, I suspect that it has a lot to do with that process. So you decide. I don’t really care one way or the other. I’m still gonna draw and it will still be fun.

Either way, though, thanks for reading this. If you’re intrigued you might wanna check out some of my publications (which I do under my own DALE LEE PLANET imprint). If not, well, hey, there’s a lot of great art out there, so find what works for you and go for it!

PEACE TO ALL. Andy Nukes St Petersburg, FL 8-25-06

[© Andy Nukes. Please do not republish without permission.]