Mary Hatch

Working full-time and caretaking, without noticing, I stopped drawing. Now I start again.

Drawing daily had been a natural way to explore the world, and use as a short-hand form of expression.

In art college I noticed I was good at reading others artist's works. A woman was shocked and confused when her self-portrait morphed into a distorted shape but when I pointed out it was the shape of a loving cup trophy, she explained that she spent years focused on diet and exercise to feel comfortable in her body. An autistic friend was frustrated that few people understand his renderings, until I described seeing the subject as flattened planes layered on top of each other, which unlocked other people seeing them too. I learned that drawing is a way to understand self and others by seeing the way we organize things from 3-D into 2-D.