Rotting Tomatoes

I'm never quite sure what I'm looking for, but I never seem to miss it either. So with that in mind, I started this first week of IP by looking the best way I know how – by drawing. I trotted off to the Ann Arbor Farmer’s market, scooped up some heirloom tomatoes, and made my way back to my studio. And then I drew.

I created six different studies, each on colored paper with Prismacolor pencil. After about 3 hours Monday morning, 2 hours Saturday night, and another 3 hours Wednesday morning, I had myself 6 different studies of three different heirloom tomatoes, grown and raised in the good ol’ Mitten.

Why tomatoes? Well, anyone who knows me knows I have this obsession with nature, especially plants, and more recently, locally-grown produce and gardening . Since I have this tendency to get stuck in a rutt of thought, I was happy to jump into something, get to know it a little better, rather than think myself into an apathetic stupor. I've been trying to get to know tomatoes better for a while now. In fact, I used to hate them. (I thank my best friend Sara for remedying this affliction.) And really, there’s no better way to know something than through drawing it.

They aren’t the best drawings I’ve ever done, nor are they my favorite, but they did get me thinking in a less scatter-brained fashion. I was happy to be actively creating, moving forward and letting the process guide my thought. As I drew, I became more transfixed and more fascinated by the vibrant, colorful patterns in the fruit. If those visuals don’t influence my IP project, they will surely influence my screen-printing project in Fibers class. Furthermore, I enjoyed creating a series of these tomatoes, re-exploring and discovering new facets with each drawing. At one point, the yellow tomato was actually rotting before my eyes. I wish I would have let my hands better capture that. The fast-paced ephemerality was breathtaking, almost heartbreaking, and it’s something I’d like to consider capturing in the future.

As for this coming week, I’ll probably continue drawing, but I also really feel a need to do some research. I’d like to see what other environmental and food artists are doing, and I’d like to discover what organic, natural materials might function as my unusual drawing tools. I know material will play an important role in my work this upcoming year, but I don’t know exactly what that role is yet.