A Small Thing (1990)

I plan my work in my head, when waking up, watching TV, driving, and at the times I have set aside for thinking about work. The first work on a new piece is done that way, purely in the mind. Then I pick up my camera. In video, working with the camera is as easy as working with a pencil. I don't feel the need to make sketches or story-boards. I just go out with a camera and try out my ideas.

Early in my life I was more of a planner, now I'm more of a capturer of images, and a refiner of them. When I was working at WGBH in the seventies I worked out all my ideas in my studio with my own video equipment, so that when I showed up at the WGBH studios I recreated there what I had planned at home. Now I just work at home. My ideas go right from mind to camera. It takes a while capturing images, looking at them, going out again with the camera, then working with the images on the computer.

Presented here is one of my drawings from 1990. I was working directly on the computer, using a stylus and digitizing tablet. The drawings showed some of the awkwardness of the process, which I like. I was not working towards some other end, but just wanted to make drawings. When they were finished I made photographic silver prints of them. I did this for two years, then later combined this activity with digital photography. This drawing is called A Small Thing and is about the observation of some small animal's remains, its skeleton measured by calipers, its brain in a glass.