NEW YORK TIMES BLIND CONTOUR DRAWINGS

i grew up at a kitchen table that was strewn always with 2 to 3 days worth of new york times issues. as a child and as an adult, i was drawn more to the photography than reading the articles. one photo would make me smile ear-to-ear, while just a page-turn away was a photograph that would quite literally make me cry. 

with some of the more powerful photography, it was difficult for me to read the accompanying article or caption. an image of a grown man sobbing into the arms of another grown man? i didn't want to know why. it was easier not to know the details of that war-torn country or the woman who lost her leg in a terrorist attack or the children who didn't have enough money to ride the bus to school. it was too hard to know all of the details. too sad and too much to digest. i turned a blind eye.

my relationship to the new york times is an incomplete one, much like these drawings. a blind contour is a drawing that is intended to hone observational skills, wherein you look only at your image source or subject (not at your paper), using one line only. the idea is to never lift your pen or pencil from the paper, and to focus only on the image or subject. staring at and studying these images forced me to realize that i was shying away from their content and context. i knew nothing about the people, or where the photos were taken. i knew nothing about the political strife afflicting that small town in that far-away land. i was blind to many of the world's happenings.