Hanging Drawings (Mills Gallery), 2008, stripped and plied electrical tape, acrylic and latex paint, 50 pins, drawing sessions open to public, 5 min. video

This work began as one piece and evolved into another over the course of the two- month exhibition period. The work is comprised of a simple set of drawing tools – a physical drawing line and 50 pins inserted into the wall randomly. A drawing is created by hanging the line on any series of pins and allowing gravity to complete the work. An accompanying video showed a series of 20 successive drawings I created in the gallery.

In this work, I was exploring a task-like approach to drawing that valued spontaneity and randomness over mastery. I was curious to see if beauty could emerge from such a mundane approach.

Shortly after installation, it became clear that the public wanted to interact with the work. Responding to this desire, I invited people to sign up for drawing sessions so they could make a series of 20 successive drawings themselves and explore this same question.

Over three weekends, people of all ages came to draw and I recorded those sessions on video. Midway in the exhibition period, I edited the footage and replaced the original video of my drawing session with a video of excerpts from participants' sessions.

In this work, as it evolved, I considered the artist's role as maker and as audience, blurring the line between artists and so called non-artists.