An Exhibition of Touch Drawings by Deborah Koff-Chapin
California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco, CA
November 5 – December 23, 2004
This exhibition is available to be shown in other locations.
CONTACT US for more information.
This was my first major exhibition in 20 years. It was time to share more facets of my work with Touch Drawing. The 'framed pieces' are drawings that were selected from larger series of spontaneous images. Many of them have layers of liquid color added to enhance the pure Touch Drawing. But the main focus of this exhibition was a selection of transformative series that are the core of my work. Each set represents different approach; Inner Portraits that attune to individuals for healing and transformation, Interpretive Touch Drawing that translates verbal content into images, drawings created while immersed in the natural world and a selection of Inner Faces. It is a blessing to share these images with you.
Fine Art Giclée prints of all images in the exhibition are available.
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| click on images to view each series in the show:
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Framed pieces |
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Bird Kiss Series
When I go for a walk in the forest or on a beach, I often bring my drawing materials. Inner and outer images merge to reflect the psyche as integral with the natural world. This series was created one afternoon on the beach and embellished with color afterwards. |
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Breast Cancer Healing Series
When a friend was diagnosed with breast cancer, my way to support her during surgery was to draw. During her recovery the walls of her room were covered with the images.
“The drawings were an inner mirror that helped me stay in touch with my interior process when I had no energy or strength to do so on my own. In our medical system, there is such an overwhelmingly huge emphasis on outer process - test results, statistics, treatment options – it was exhausting. I felt traumatized with no resources for the inner work that I normally do for myself. The drawings surrounding me were a manifestation of my dreams and created a bridge between the inner and outer worlds.” |
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Faces of the Universe Series
From the very first time I did Touch Drawing in 1974, I have drawn faces. Those early ones were pure childlike scrawls. Then they evolved to raw primal expressions. Over the years, the drawing of faces has deepened to become a central meditation for me. Sometimes it feels like I am gazing into an inner mirror. At other times, it feels as if a self-aware being is emerging onto the page from some unknown realm. I do not project any interpretations onto these beings. For me it has been enough to let the ‘be’. But it feels like they are now asking to make themselves known. The 38 faces shown here are each selected from a larger series of which they are a part; ‘representatives’ of their group. I invite you to open to their presence; ask them what they have to say. You are welcome to write what you hear in the notebook available nearby. |
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Death Support Series
A beloved friend had been diagnosed with a brain tumor. She used it as a catalyst for her awakening. After three years, she slipped into a coma. Remaining in her home, she was cared for by beloved friends through the process of dieing. One afternoon, I set up my materials and drew in the sacred presence of her being. I cannot know if this communion with her spirit was helpful to her soul as she prepared to die, but I hope it was.
Her husband shared that “the resonant and sensitive presence bubbling through the drawings added a tender, healing dimension to the whole community. The vivid images of heart-and-soul-opening perspectives brought all who saw them into an awe-full place of receptivity. That’s a very community-coalescing gift of Art, and the more so for being a spontaneous, immediate process.” This is the pure and original role of art. It was a great blessing to serve in this way. |
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Palestinian Israeli Relations Series
Though the immediacy of Touch Drawing, I am able to visually portray both the content and energetic qualities of a lecture, poetry reading, meeting or musical performance. I have found that this is an amazing way to listen. Rather than sitting passively at a lecture, I can integrate the experience through simultaneously translating what I hear into images. These images are often displayed for the audience to reflect upon. In some settings, they are sold as a benefit for charitable causes or reproduced along with conference proceedings. I have done this for over 200 different presentations.
I decided to show this series done during talk by Yehezkel Landau on Israeli/Palestinian relations for a couple of reasons. I have notes of what he was saying while I did each drawing, which helps give a sense of the process. I also feel that this is a timely subject. I embellished these drawings with color afterwards. |
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Star Child Integration Series
This short series expresses something of the inner transformational process that can be engaged in through using Touch Drawing as a form of attunement and meditation. |
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Van Gogh Series
A couple of years ago, an artist in my community who has a deep knowledge of Van Gogh’s work and writing designed a community exhibition. He selected many quotes from Van Gogh’s letters, put them in these painted envelopes, and invited people to select one and use it as inspiration for their own art piece.
The Van Gogh quote that I randomly selected was particularly appropriate to my process. I attuned to this statement as well as the ‘spirit’ of Van Gogh, and did a series of Touch Drawings. I then embellished them with color. This is a selection from a larger series.
370- Van Gogh to Emile Bernard, 23 June, 1888
“Yes our own life is a modest one indeed, our life as painters, languishing under the back-breaking yoke of the problems of a calling that is almost too hard to practise on this ungrateful planet, where ‘love of art drives out true love’.
However, since nothing confutes the assumption that lines and forms and colours exist on innumerable other planets and suns as well, we are at liberty to feel fairly serene about the possibilities of painting in a better and different existence, an existence altered by a phenomenon that is perhaps no more ingenious and no more surprising than the transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly or of a grub into a maybug.
The existence of a painter-butterfly would be played out on the countless celestial bodies which, after death, should be no more inaccessible to us than the black dots on maps that symbolize towns and villages are in our earthly lives.
Science – scientific reasoning- strikes me as being an instrument that will go a very long way in the future. For look: people used to think that the earth was flat. That was true, and still is today, of, say, Paris to Asnieres. But that does not alter the fact that science demonstrates that the earth as a whole is round, something nobody now disputes. For all that, people still persist in thinking that life is flat and runs from birth to death.” |
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Whales Series
I live in Puget Sound, Washington. In the spring we often see migrating grey whales that come into Saratoga Passage to feed on the ghost shrimp. One morning when I was walking on the beach, there they were – and quite close to shore. I ran back up the hill to my home, grabbed my drawing materials and ran back down again. Luckily they were still there. I attuned to their presence and drew. It is intriguing to try to find form for non-human consciousness. I hope to do more of this kind of work in the future.
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