Charles Steckler

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I draw for many reasons. I draw professionally and I draw for personal pleasure and out of curiosity. For a theatrical set designer, there is no leaner tool to convey or work out how a thing looks or what is intended or imagined. Here drawing is both thinking and describing. In contrast, my personal drawing practice is neither applied nor practical but is purely for the sake of experiment and the unalloyed pleasures of discovery. I call this activity per passa il tempo - passing time - which derives from a daily practice of automatic drawing. These drawings come from my hand’s undirected encounter with tools and materials. I generate marks and shapes improvisationally out of the energies embedded in muscle memory and subliminal awareness. By this approach I strive to subvert preconception and designing in favor of original experimentation. The glyphic scribblings that result are meditative and instructive in the way that Leonardo da Vinci’s recommendation to study stains on walls, ashes from the fire, clouds and mud, is offered as an aid to the conjuring imagination.