Drawing Tadashi Drawing

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Tadashi found me via the Irving Sandler Artists File in New York.  Curators went there to search what was then a slide file to discover artists.  Tadashi saw my slides, came for a studio visit and put me in an exhibition he was curating.  He gave me a huge long wall that allowed space enough for the entire Ensemble sequence, both photographs and drawings. 

 When we were installing the show he suggested the drawings would be better unframed.  Tadashi, who was about half my age, had no problem making this suggestion and I could see that he was right.  The unframed drawings worked better in relation to the photographs.  I was glad to learn from Tadashi.

When Tadashi moved to Brooklyn we kept in touch.  For a few years I continued photographing artists and actors at their work and sequencing my images into books.  Then I started thinking about photographing a person who was working alone.

I had always thought Tadashi would be good to photograph.  We talked about that.  And so one hot summer day I arrived at  Tadashi’s un-air conditioned studio in Brooklyn with a car full of fans.  We spent the day together.   Tadashi worked on his intricate fantastical drawings and I made photographs.

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Drawing Tadashi Drawing made in an edition of 10. 7.5 x 8.5 inches. Seventeen archival ink jet prints mounted on Stonehenge paper, museum board ends, bound with mylar jacket (5) and archival ink jet prints directly on book paper, museum board ends, bound with mylar jacket (5). 2010.