ART BY Donna Kelly      artist cv   Hurricane Ridge - 12 hours June 22/05 Hurricane Ridge from Moss Rock #6 (July 2005 onward) "Hurricane Ridge from Moss Rock #5 (28 days in June 2005) "Hurricane Ridge from Moss Rock #4 (May days 2005) "Hours of Hurricane Ridge *4" Hurricane Ridge Alaska Coast #10 Alaska Coast #8 Alaska Coast Hurricane Ridge #8 Hurricane Ridge #7       “It’s About Time”: Drawings by Donna Kelly The physicist Mandelbrot, in response to his own question, how long is a coastline, answered, it depends on the length of your ruler. Euclidean measurements fail to capture the essence of irregular shapes, whereas the concepts of dimension, which includes time and point of view, offer richer possibilities for seeing what is conceivably infinite. How do we come to understand something that is then, complex and chaotic? Perhaps it is through the study of patterns that we find evidence of the infinite. Donna Kelly’s ongoing series of drawings are evidence of a process of trying to see and understand something simple, infinite, and possibly incomprehensible – a view. Her system is clear – a grid of drawings corresponding to specific hours or days. Each drawing records the same view of Hurricane Ridge, a portion of the Olympic Mountain range in Washington State, as seen from her studio window in Victoria. She has made hundreds of these drawings, none of which are identical, just as the view is never exactly the same, hour upon hour, day by day. Kelly began this series of drawings in 2003, when she acquired her studio, an apartment that backs onto Moss Rock near Ross Bay cemetery. Visiting the studio, one immediately seeks out the particular view across the water that fascinates her. It is a fragment of the coastline, seen between tree branches and buildings, and above the rocks. It is easily hidden behind veils of fog and rain. Glimpses of it in sunny detail are rare and precious. The first drawings were made on paper, some individual, and others in a collective sheet, a format of 7 across and four down, marking a kind of 28-day calendar. The titles of each note the random hours or dates drawn. No drawing is ever alike, although all are made with graphite, which gives the drawings their rich blacks and subtlety in shading. The contemplation of time through the consideration of an artwork has a long history. One only has to think of the books of hours created in the middle ages, a form of illuminated manuscripts that encouraged their owner to consider ideas of their faith and mortality. Many artists have been fascinated by the changes in a landscape over time, it is not uncommon to find a series of paintings of the same subject. Monet’s serial paintings of haystacks or the Rouen cathedral, for example, show his struggle to record the changes of light throughout a day. More recent still, many artists have chosen conceptual approaches to respond to time. For example Arakawa measured time through conceptual artworks that included postcards and drawings that recorded a detail from his day, and mailed to himself to document through a dated postmark, a sequence. In 2005 Kelly began using sheets of mylar, a kind of opaque plastic, instead of paper. When she added a layer of silver mylar behind, the drawings began to capture the luminosity she saw in the water, sky and mists. Gradually Kelly became aware that the real subject of her work was not the particular place, as she has neither visited Hurricane ridge, nor desired closer perspective of that particular piece of coastline. It was not the mountains that she was drawing, but rather the light, air, wind and moisture – the atmosphere – of that view. She says: “I know little more about my little view now than three years ago. What I saw was through the filter of atmosphere and time. It leads me to believe that a lifetime of observation would not permit any true or accurate record of this little section.” Drawing’s historical function in art making has been to quickly and efficiently record. To draw one’s subject is to engage in a profound act of looking. It is not surprising, that as a verb, to draw, is also the act of bringing forward, to attract. Drawing, within art, is a way to make intimate, one’s understanding of the subject. Kelly’s drawings then, can be in both ways, considered as “drawn to understand.” Liane Davison January 2006.