I’M HERE

 

The name comes from something that happens to me while I draw.

 

These drawings are small, and working within such a limited space demands almost all of my attention. A tiny change in distance, direction, pressure, or proportion can affect everything around it. As a drawing becomes more developed, I sometimes hesitate. I worry that the next line might be the one that ruins it. In those moments, a quiet sentence often appears in my mind:

 

 

It does not make the fear disappear. It reminds me that I can stay with it without letting it take over. I can let the uncertainty stay beside me, look carefully at what is actually in front of me, and make the next decision.

 

I draw directly in ink, without a preliminary sketch or a ruler, and I do not plan the final image in advance. Once a line is drawn, I cannot take it back. I can draw over it, respond to it, change direction, or build something new from what is already there. These are simply the rules I chose for myself. Over time, I grew to love what they demand from me.

 

Because I cannot go back and erase what has already happened, I have to keep creating from what is in front of me. A line that feels wrong can open a new direction. An imbalance can suggest another form. Something unexpected can become the beginning of the most interesting part of the drawing.

 

For me, creativity is not always about knowing what to do. It is also the ability to remain curious when I do not know. That is why I think of each drawing as a small adventure. Some become geometric. Some become more organic. Some gradually develop symmetry. They begin under the same basic rules, yet they keep moving in directions I could not have predicted. There is control in the process, but there is also instinct. There is precision, but also irregularity.

 

Chaos and order are always present together.

 

The small square gives them a place to coexist. When my concentration becomes deep enough, the noise in my mind settles. For a while, there is only the paper, the ink, the movement of the nib, and what is happening right now. That state is an important part of what I’M HERE means to me.

 

I wanted to bring these drawings together as one project because I wanted what I was doing to become more tangible. I wanted to watch something grow over time and eventually stand in front of the whole body of work. Completing 111 drawings will take me a long time. That makes the collection more than a group of images. It also becomes a record of time.

 

Looking back through the drawings will be a little like travelling backward through my own decisions. I will be able to see what I tried, where I made mistakes, how I responded to them, what changed, and what I learned along the way. Fear and mistakes will travel through the collection with me. But the fact that these drawings exist is proof that neither fear nor mistakes have ever been the end of the process.

 

When many of these small drawings stand together, they begin to feel like a miniature world of their own. I can see repetition and difference, structure and spontaneity, mistakes that became something else, and all the different paths my imagination found inside the same small boundary. I do not think of I’M HERE as a challenge. I enjoy making these drawings. For me, it is a collection, a practice, and a promise to myself to create something I genuinely want to see exist.