Dowsing Rod Series

Two years ago while vacationing at the family farm, a friend noticed the dowsing rods lying on the porch and asked what they were. I explained that they were used to find water underground.  The dowsing process involves holding two metal rods in each hand and as you walk over the land the rods will move involuntarily if there is water below. I learned this technique from my father, who was taught by his father. I was intrigued to see if I could turn this process into a drawing or some sort of image.

Like a seismograph, I attached a string to one dowsing rod and then a pen to the end of the string. Moving across the land I let the pen flow over the sheet of paper recording the movements of the dowsing rod—pulling the drawings from the ground. Over the next six months, I made approximately fifteen thousand drawings with a dowsing rod.

Back in my studio with stacks of these dowsed drawings, I was intrigued on where I could take them.  The involuntary line the dowsing rod had made was foreign to the twenty years of drawings I had previously produced. One day in the studio I started reworking the dowsed drawings—strengthening some lines, leaving others letting my eye find its way in.

These drawings begged for large scale. I did not want to simply transfer these to a large canvas and paint them in, losing the spontaneity. A fellow artist suggested that I could simply enlarge them by making prints. This process then allowed me to work with the background without losing the quality of the original drawing.

These prints have now found a home between my painting and drawing practice, acting as a bridge between what had been two separate practices.