In an act of drawing, a line of communication opens between a subject and it’s observer. More than a line of communication; a lightning rod bristling with static – alive and responsive, affected by everything in its radius. An ecosystem of sound, coordination, desire, focus, fascination, anticipation, all forming a unique circumstance for this subject and this viewer to bring something new into the world: this drawing.

It is convenient, or at least tidy, to divide the act of drawing according to subject or medium. A drawing of a lone rock is therefore still life, a formation of rocks a landscape, and a drawing of a rock band: figurative art. This division has been stark and clear for me since I began making art. I’ve described my practice as bearing different egos – here is Calum’s performative drawing practice, over here, his drawing machine practice, and his “main” drawing practice over there; the reverential worship of stone in its mineral glory.

The idea that these “egos” are self-sustaining and distinct is reductive. As the arrival of a weevil in an ecosystem spells a change simply by being there and not somewhere else, so too does every act of drawing feed off and nourish every other act committed by its maker. Following this, every act by this maker feeds off of and nourishes the acts of all others with whom it makes contact.

Thus, my practice is whole and serves as my investigation and meditation, a song of praise and a book of longing. In the act of drawing I strive to record just one instant, one aspect of how it was to be here, with my subject and my self, at just this moment. In doing so I mark my place as a piece in a puzzle at a point in time.

It is in this recording of time that my greatest fascination lies. Drawing makes time visible. When looking at a drawing I can see the time that the artist poured into that sheet of paper, I am aware of their presence even if the drawing was made a thousand years ago. When making a drawing, I can watch time unfold. The light never changes so fast as when I’m drawing; a plant never grows so swiftly; a 40 minute pose never felt so miserly.

When I draw rocks, time is more than visible. Time is opaque and impenetrable. Time sees our posterity and raises us eternity. A face of rock has passed every moment that has ever been on this earth and the only secrets it shares are its scars. Its scars which tell of the rock’s circumstance – what happened to the rock; but not how the rock happened, not at the very beginning. Yet these scars are painstakingly scrutinised, their origins pondered and considered in a guessing game with no feasible conclusion. I ask the rock a question, but it will never reward my cogitation with an answer, yet I am certain that it has one.

I repeat my question to the earth. I draw. I ask the wind, I ask the trees, I ask water. I ask them to draw too, to learn this language with me. But every drawing is another question. There we sit, nature and I, and everything besides, asking questions of each other. I can’t tell if we’ve made progress, but at least we’re communicating.