Study for "The X" 1978

Ronald Bladen made this study for "The X", with pencil on paper. It’s all about the lines, isn’t it? How they sit there, so simple, so clean, making something out of nothing. There is such a pleasure in that. Look at the way each line has this real clarity, and the way they come together to make this big, imposing X. It’s not just a shape; it’s like a doorway, or a signpost pointing in every direction at once. You can almost feel the weight of it, the way it plants itself on the page, while there is also something light and airy about it because it's just a drawing. I always feel like art is a conversation. Maybe Bladen was talking to Sol LeWitt here, with that interest in simple geometry, but also throwing in something a bit more human and imperfect. It's cool how art can hold so many different thoughts and feelings at the same time, right?