It’s almost baseball season, so I made a book about baseball. Actually, the book this used to be——of which, only the covers and a few pages remain, though most are covered by drawing and collage——is about baseball, whereas what I made is not about anything I could tell you in words.
After months of having to try to make sentences make sense, to have them add up to something narratively in a book, it’s a relief to make something that functions almost entirely via intuition. There’s an internal logic to the way each page interacts with the ones before and after it, but I don’t have to verbalize it, either to myself or to others.
The Three-two Pitch was a book I picked up at a rummage sale. I liked the drawing of the pitcher on the cover with the old-school high leg kick wind-up. I flipped through the pages and was disappointed not to find any more illustrations inside. It’s one of those aspirational sports books marketed to young boys, from the few sentences I bothered to read. I put it on the shelf face out and forgot about it for a couple years.
Since I started on the collages sometime last year, unread unused books look like possible material for art. I’ve got five or six that I won’t ever read and can’t imagine anyone else wanting to read. They’ll become the ground or under-painting for new compositions. I assemble them page-to-page, trying to catch what one suggests for the next, echoing or counterpointing, keeping a rhythm going.
I think I can keep going this way for a bit, not having to make sense to anyone, because it feels right, even though I can’t say how or why.
p.s. Look at all the spreads in The Three-two Pitch here.