My grandmother was a painter. Watercolor or oil depicting poinsettias, a woman in a bathtub, fishing vessels tied to a pier. She left me a Japanese screen with bamboo trees and a quail. My other grandmother painted fruit, gourds, and flowers on the backs of chairs. She used a stencil for the outline, but the fine details were filled in by hand. I have four of her chairs around my kitchen table, each one demonstrating a different stage of her expertise. Two are early experiments—I like these two most. The other two are more accomplished with gold touches and shading and depth and light. 

For me, drawing opens a door to some other place where I can let go and play around. But tied up with the solitary process of diving in and exploring, there is also a pull to share the experience and see if the work finds valence with anyone else who might look at them quizzically, notice a weird little bird I put in there, or think “Is that a bird?” “Is that a beach?” “Do I want to stay here for a minute?” I am curious as to whether someone would be drawn to these places I have visited and if they might squint or smile.   

I am an untrained artist besides the high school painting and sculpture classes and the time my mother signed me and my sister up for an art class in the summer when we were 12 or so. I won two awards in the Boston Globe Scholastic Art Competition in 1995. This is my greatest artistic achievement and the height of my visibility as an artist.

I found a can of colored pencils in my apartment in 2023 and started drawing on ripped up paper bags. I used whatever else I could find around: interior house paint, Wite-Out, a Sharpie, a regular pencil, a blue highlighter. I like the freedom of using these instruments, playing against the logo on the bag, the million choices that present themselves.  

Adam Sylvia