August 03, 2008|Liesl Bradner
STARING out a car window while stuck in traffic is an everyday annoyance that may seemingly have no redeeming artistic elements. Elizabeth Patterson was intrigued by this dreary act and, upping the ante, turned her sights to what was actually on the windshield during sporadic Southern California rain showers.
The resulting colored pencil and graphite drawings are based on photos of L.A. streets shot through her car’s windshield.
The Pennsylvania native received accolades early in her career, but her artistic pursuits were abruptly halted by a severe injury to her drawing hand. Years later, she traveled to Hawaii and discovered the magnificence of the undersea world. The visual stimulation, along with realization that her drawing hand was functional, inspired her to resurrect her art career.
It reminded me a of a recent discussion of John Updike’s ‘pointilist description’ of raindrops on a windscreen at Paper Cuts.
Its panes were strewn with drops that as if by amoebic decision would
abruptly merge and break and jerkily run downward, and the window
screen, like a sampler half-stitched, or a crossword puzzle invisibly
solved, was inlaid erratically with minute, translucent tesserae of
rain.
Leave a Reply