Regarding the wooden inlays:
Painting is my primary art form,
but one of my passions is the preservation of our
historic architecture.
It’s sad to see how such beauty has suffered through neglect
and ignorance.
I spent years restoring old houses: scraping floors,
piecing together
broken boards,
repairing cracks in walls... and began
to internalize a sense
of history,
of lives past,
of labor given by nameless craftsmen.
At the same time, I mastered
the use of power tools.
Inspired by their rawness and intensity
I used them as tools
to draw, not on paper or canvas,
but rather,
through wood and metal.I started this series not intending to replicate anything specific,
but to use these
experiences as points of departure.
These mosaic inlays are another way to paint.
But they also recall the excitement
of printmaking,
the pulling of the first proof
after
hours of preparing a plate.
Because when choosing the wood,
the scraps are dirty and
obscured
with layers of grime and old varnish.
The excitement comes
in starting
to sand
it all away
once the pieces have been set with glue and plaster.
Then this new,
yet old,
image
starts to emerge,
the same way when kneeling on the floor,
scraping away
years
of neglect...Drew Knapp
July 2002
