St. Luke's Attic

In recent weeks I have had a couple of requests to dig up an old drawing. It’s a drawing I did about 13 years ago for my MFA thesis project. The title of this behemoth is Romans: An Allegory of the Gospel According to Paul. It is, as you may have guessed, an allegory. Of Romans.

To say that this is a large piece that is difficult to get photographed and on this blog doesn’t give you the full feeling for the situation. This drawing is 42″ tall by something like 36′ long. You’ll notice that I wrote a ‘ and not a “ behind that number 36. That means feet. So the drawing is 42 inches tall by 36 feet long. This is like that scene in Spinal Tap where the guys want a giant model of Stonehenge on stage but they get a tiny little model instead. Whoever came up with the plans used ” instead of ‘ when they made their drawings. Funny stuff, watch it and be amused.

There are a great many things that I would do differently if I were to make this drawing again today. For starters, I would retitle it to read something like Romans: The Gospel According to St. Paul. Not much of a difference you say? Maybe not, but I have grown to dislike allegories and I certainly am not on a first name basis with St. Paul. If anyone was a saint, he was. And if you’re uncomfortable calling him Saint, maybe you could at least call him Mr. Paul?

As a sort of teaser for what’s to come, here’s the postcard that I sent out for the show.

It’s B&W not because I was a cheapskate, but because the original is B&W! I mean, I AM a cheapskate, but that’s not what was going on here.

Over the next few weeks on Mondays, I’ll write more about this piece and what it means and what it has meant for me. So that means you still have the normal, random results of my wandering pencil to look forward to on Thursdays, so don’t panic! Stay with me here!