From the Dot to the Line—Drawing a Thread Out and Writing it Through

Language, and other people, are there to surprise us into new forms of life.

Drawing is a testing of ideas, a slow-motion version of thought. The uncertain and imprecise way of constructing a drawing is sometimes a model of how to construct meaning.

I think of myself as an artist making drawings, even when the charcoal is replaced by an ink word. Being led by a line, in this case a line of ink or a pen.

Two of Paul Klee's wry quotes often inspire me: “A line is a dot that went for a walk” and “A drawing is simply a line going for a walk.” I think of how I make a mark on the page, an indentation that then grows into a word, and the words then multiply into a sentence, a line of language. Making my mark on the page feels different from typing onto a screen; it feels more personal, more permanent, definite unlike the vanishing that comes with pressing the Delete button. Interestingly some film directors have commented on not being able to revise their movies once they are released. They are then a static form, not moving, in the sense of being crafted, anymore. Films once produced rarely get re-shot. I suppose an analytic session is like that too; it was as it was. It cannot be edited or

re-shot. I might perceive different angles with each viewing of a film or re-imagining or re-membering of a session in an après-coup.

Uglow (2022) sees the popular British illustrator Quentin Blake's recent ballpoint pen drawings as demonstrating “a democratic medium, in reach of us all” and showing us that “the unvarying line” of this kind of held pen can “be adapted to all styles and moods: smooth, romantic, craggy or wild” (p. 225).

I am someone who thinks in pictures. Much as I love the pleasurable sounds and rhythms of words, I often feel that I am struggling and searching to express myself in a second language that fits the images and sounds in my mind. As well as what I smell and taste. I h