These drawings were originally sold in 2009 as a suite.

The thought behind them sprung from looking at art history and seeing how certain patterns emerge, especially what became known as classicism. Classicism initially had a rich conceptual underpinning to the forms used. Classical imagery then resurfaced throughout history whenever people wanted to renew attention on the ancient ideas it represented. Something happens with this repeat movement, however: the imagery starts to represent a certain mood or feeling rather than the actual concepts—fewer and fewer people are familiar with the thought of the Greeks that created this imagery, so the image style that everyone is familiar with now more sets a tone than it communicates ideas. The images continue, but the meaning gets lost. Just because once meaningful forms are perpetuated, it doesn’t mean the ideas are perpetuated.

What is compelling to me about this is that the same principle can be applied in many arenas. Patriotism is a good example. We can wear an American flag on our baseball cap, but that doesn’t mean that the fire of patriotism burns in our chest making us ready to zealously run towards machine gun fire to defend our republic. Religion too; wearing a cross around the neck doesn’t necessarily indicate a preparedness to burn for Christian Truth. It probably doesn’t indicate that, actually.

So, I created this body of work representing classic imagery using office supplies. It seemed to illustrate the point well.

An interesting development happened in 2023.

The purchaser contacted me because the images had almost entirely faded away! Because I was using office supplies, the ink was not archival:

What a striking metaphor for what happens to meaningful things if care is not taken in the transmission of those things to sustain their meaning and power. They just fade away.

That is why I was happy to restore these images as seen at the top of the page, this time using materials that will last. It serves as a meaningful metaphor for an idea that does burn vividly in my chest. I believe in eternal things (e.g. Beauty, Truth, Logic, Morality, etc.), and that their existence depends on the fact that they are actually attributes of an eternal being, God. Every generation is in danger of losing sight of those very good things if care is not taken to teach them in all their richness rather than just passing them along using forms that increasingly lose their meaning.