David Harvey draws on the walls
David Harvey scribbles furiously, using an orange colored pencil to embed a wild squiggle into a leaning, black rectangle on the bottom of the drawing paper attached to the wall.
“I’m trying to fix a messed up drawing here,” Harvey says. “It’s been troubling me since I left last night. I decided it was time to fix it.”
He isn’t working the basement studio in his north Lincoln house.
Instead, he’s drawing in one of the spaces at the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery he’s transformed into a facsimile of his home workspace for “Drawing: A Studio Installation,” his part of “Sheldon Connections 2,” the museum’s summer exhibition series.
Harvey, who has extensively exhibited his work in Nebraska and had a previous solo Sheldon show, proposed coming into the museum every day to draw, allowing visitors to get some idea of how an artist works and giving him the opportunity to talk about his work.
Just as Harvey finished his work on the drawing, a man driving through Lincoln on a work trip from South Dakota stopped by to talk. Harvey pointed out the photos of desert landscapes from the Four Corners region that hang above the row of drawings, providing the basis for his iconography.
“Just having people walk up and start talking to me about why I’m doing is great,” Harvey says.
“When I start showing them the similarities between the drawings and the photography, they said ‘I get it now.’ To have that happen is very rewarding, a big plus.”
Then a couple from Buffalo, N.Y., who were dropping off their daughter for the fall semester, ventured in. Harvey engaged them, asking about their museum experiences, leading to a discussion of Buffalo’s Albright-Knox Art Gallery.
So it goes for the four hours a day Harvey will spend at the museum through the run of “Sheldon Connections 2,” which closes Sept. 9.
Transforming the gallery into a studio space wasn’t that difficult.
He works standing up because the drawings are attached to the wall. He stands on a rubber floor mat to give him better footing than provided by the slick marble floors.
Working on the bottom of the drawing paper, Harvey often marks the gallery wall — “just like at home.”
A few feet behind him, a table and a desk hold the portfolio of his completed drawings and his supplies: black, white and gray paper; a little white oil paint; colored pencils (some with two colors mixed together); and compressed graphite sticks (“They are amazing. You get deep, rich, dark … it’s so soft.”)
There’s a chair next to the desk, where he sits to look at drawings in progress. And he’s been known to ask visitors for input on troublesome work.
Earlier in the installation, a drawing wasn’t working at all. A mother and her two kids came in. After talking a while, Harvey told her he needed help.
She made a suggestion about how to fix it.
“Son of a gun, she was right,” he says. “I took her advice and now have a collaborative piece with an unknown artist.”
One visitor spent time talking to Harvey about Ernest, a cartoon character he developed over the years — a bearded man with a fish named Flo around his neck.
There’s a small drawing of Ernest between some of the photos, and an Ernest sketchbook in the desk drawer that comes out when kids stop by.
“Ernest is a big part of what I do,” Harvey says. “I had originally made a proposal for an Ernest retrospective show. They never said I couldn’t do Ernest. I just decided to go with a studio installation and make it very similar to how it is at home. Ernest is a part of that.”
By late last week, Harvey had completed 16 drawings since Aug. 10, likely more than he would have finished at home.
“I feel really good about it. I’ve got three large drawings on the wall now and I never have more than one at home. I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this show. But what I’ve been getting from it has been great.”
Reach L. Kent Wolgamott at 473-7244 or kwolgamott@journalstar.com.
“I’m trying to fix a messed up drawing here,” Harvey says. “It’s been troubling me since I left last night. I decided it was time to fix it.”
He isn’t working the basement studio in his north Lincoln house.
Instead, he’s drawing in one of the spaces at the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery he’s transformed into a facsimile of his home workspace for “Drawing: A Studio Installation,” his part of “Sheldon Connections 2,” the museum’s summer exhibition series.
Harvey, who has extensively exhibited his work in Nebraska and had a previous solo Sheldon show, proposed coming into the museum every day to draw, allowing visitors to get some idea of how an artist works and giving him the opportunity to talk about his work.
Just as Harvey finished his work on the drawing, a man driving through Lincoln on a work trip from South Dakota stopped by to talk. Harvey pointed out the photos of desert landscapes from the Four Corners region that hang above the row of drawings, providing the basis for his iconography.
“Just having people walk up and start talking to me about why I’m doing is great,” Harvey says.
“When I start showing them the similarities between the drawings and the photography, they said ‘I get it now.’ To have that happen is very rewarding, a big plus.”
Then a couple from Buffalo, N.Y., who were dropping off their daughter for the fall semester, ventured in. Harvey engaged them, asking about their museum experiences, leading to a discussion of Buffalo’s Albright-Knox Art Gallery.
So it goes for the four hours a day Harvey will spend at the museum through the run of “Sheldon Connections 2,” which closes Sept. 9.
Transforming the gallery into a studio space wasn’t that difficult.
He works standing up because the drawings are attached to the wall. He stands on a rubber floor mat to give him better footing than provided by the slick marble floors.
Working on the bottom of the drawing paper, Harvey often marks the gallery wall — “just like at home.”
A few feet behind him, a table and a desk hold the portfolio of his completed drawings and his supplies: black, white and gray paper; a little white oil paint; colored pencils (some with two colors mixed together); and compressed graphite sticks (“They are amazing. You get deep, rich, dark … it’s so soft.”)
There’s a chair next to the desk, where he sits to look at drawings in progress. And he’s been known to ask visitors for input on troublesome work.
Earlier in the installation, a drawing wasn’t working at all. A mother and her two kids came in. After talking a while, Harvey told her he needed help.
She made a suggestion about how to fix it.
“Son of a gun, she was right,” he says. “I took her advice and now have a collaborative piece with an unknown artist.”
One visitor spent time talking to Harvey about Ernest, a cartoon character he developed over the years — a bearded man with a fish named Flo around his neck.
There’s a small drawing of Ernest between some of the photos, and an Ernest sketchbook in the desk drawer that comes out when kids stop by.
“Ernest is a big part of what I do,” Harvey says. “I had originally made a proposal for an Ernest retrospective show. They never said I couldn’t do Ernest. I just decided to go with a studio installation and make it very similar to how it is at home. Ernest is a part of that.”
By late last week, Harvey had completed 16 drawings since Aug. 10, likely more than he would have finished at home.
“I feel really good about it. I’ve got three large drawings on the wall now and I never have more than one at home. I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this show. But what I’ve been getting from it has been great.”
Reach L. Kent Wolgamott at 473-7244 or kwolgamott@journalstar.com.
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