Francesca
Lacuna Galleries is the newest gallery in Santa Fe, NM. One could easily spend an entire day, week, or month meandering the streets of Santa Fe looking at all the art. Thus I, who spent all day at this particular gallery, was not totally surprised to see only two or three art soldiers wandering around on Lacuna turf.
Lacuna, being the newest gallery in town, is looking for new employees—hence my relation to this story. I’m writing this now, on my first day on the job from the beautiful two-story, historical Delgado House on Palace Avenue. I’m on the second floor right now, listening to a fountain murmur from the sunny courtyard below. Two doors are open, leading out to their respective front and back facing balconies. Everything—the walls, the light, (my inner aesthete)—is peacefully lingering and enjoying the view. There’s a cross breeze tickling my face.
To my right there’s a gorgeous woman (ostensibly her name is Francesca) in pencil by Anthony Ryder. I have been admiring her all day. She appears half-finished and wholly-undressed; but Francesca doesn’t seem to mind—her world seems to be Ryder’s exploration of how sketching meets drawing. The outline of her feet are merely a gentle nod to the Platonic-form “feet”, yet as the eye moves up her torso, her form and beauty become more realized, more whole. To quote Ryder:
“…sketching is not drawing. A sketch captures in a few strokes some aspect of the movement, proportion and character of the figure. Sketches can be exquisitely beautiful. Drawing on the other hand builds an image of the figure, an image replete with every subtle curve, both in the outline, and throughout its entire visible surface. This is accomplished in drawing through the work of shading. Through shading is described the ever turning, ever modulating form of the surface of the body that occurs within the confines of the contour.”
Just above her head I see a few intriguing figures that look like they could have been pulled from an assortment of calculus journals, ancient Euclidean notebooks, futuristic quantum-physics manuals, etc. There are vectors denoting light refraction patterns, wonderfully shaded spheres, an elegant skeleton (really!), and so on…perhaps Ryder sees that underneath the beauty of Francesca lies an amalgam of other forms and patterns of light.
“Today is wonderful,” I think to myself as the light and water from outside catch my attention once more. Today is wonderful. I like vectors. I like spheres. I like Anthony Ryder, and I adore Francesca.
Maggie Thornton
