EVAN M. LOPEZ: Reaching Into the Past for a Hand

Reaching Into the Past for a Hand



Kids will draw on anything. 20 years ago I found this fax copy roll in a bundle of trash-bound office stock, someplace, somewhere. Its entirely possible I pilfered it from some middle-school basement or office closet. It was a compact roll of ultra-thin 28x9 copy paper; not very good quality. It was likely to become an invoice or a receipt, or some meaningless note for someone just "goin' through the motions". Either way, it struck me as something of creative value. So I, 12 at the time, knew that I could take to it with pen and pencil to make something. I had made strange "surrealism" (I'm not sure if what I did falls under that artistic subset, but I was learning so...) drawings, and this was prime among them.


Cut to a few months ago, when I came across this rolled up, slightly ragged finished piece in my folks basement. Unrolling it, I found the drawing I had made 20 years before. It felt a bit like opening a time capsule. It also did the same thing it did all those years ago. It gave me an idea...
(This is the original, 1994 version)

That idea was to remake what I saw 20 years ago, but how I saw it today. So here is the fruit of both of those days. 12 year old Ev, and 32 year old Ev collaborating on one piece set in two lives. "Going back" isn't always a bad idea. Im going to try out a color version soon. Stay tuned for updates. 

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