BARRY MALONEY Gallery of Fine Art

This collection of images comes directly from one single 6" x 6" sketchbook that I carried from mid-April 2004 to early-June 2004. Each drawing was initially done as an individual finished image, but when I completed the last drawing in the sketchbook and looked back at the whole, I realized that when I removed maybe ten pages of to-do lists, notes to self, and unsatisfactory drawings from the book, I came away with a unique collection of 30 finished drawings unified by time period and stylistic experimentation.

The sketchbook starts humbly enough, a plein air drawing of an old door with some collected ax heads and tree stumps at its base. It goes with me out into the world, a self-reflection at a diner, tropical fish swimming in a restaurant aquarium, open ended thoughts, insights both spacious and small. I should note that I entered into a spirit of experimentation with this particular sketchbook, consciously challenged by the eccentric writings of Frenchman Maurice de Vlaminck, which endorsed spontaneous, unconditioned abandon from the ground up in the creative process. The series continues with trips to Chinese restaurants, horse race tracks, a pool hall, and a couple of pencil drawings of pears done on my fortieth birthday, concluding with some drawings of improvisational movement artists, my cat on the kitchen floor, and a final reflection on life and
the arts.

It seems to me that the totality of our lives is lived like this, day by day, piece by piece, adding up
over time to a series of moments that, seen as a whole, define who we are by how we've spent this floating life.