Montes Apenninus Region of the Moon 1972

Nancy Graves made this colored pencil drawing of the Montes Apenninus Region of the Moon, but I don't know when. It looks like a map, but the pinks and blues give it a dreamy quality, as if it’s not just a rendering of a place, but a feeling. The marks are small, pointillist dots, and they remind me of the way information is collected, slowly, bit by bit, until a picture emerges. Looking closely, you can see how the colored pencil has a waxy texture, building up in layers of tiny marks. The pink is soft and powdery, while the blues and greens have a cooler, more metallic feel. There’s a section, near the middle, where the blue dots become more spaced out, and the pink underneath peeks through. It’s like a moment of breath, a chance to see the surface and the layers below. It reminds me of the drawings of Alfred Jensen, who also used color and geometry to map out complex systems of knowledge. But where Jensen's work feels dense and intellectual, Graves' drawing feels more open, more intuitive, like a record of a personal journey through an unknown landscape.