Early Works - Drawing, 1979-83

Drawing was an essential part of Lynn Book’s early art practices and has continued as such throughout her life as an artist. Even when focused primarily on performance projects and concert works for voice and text, drawing has endured as a mode of thinking, of visualizing thought, apparent mainly in her sketchbooks. However, periodic externalizations of drawings, sketches, diagrams are also part of the process of developing a multimedia performance project, such as “Gorgeous Fever” (1994-97). The artist returned to making drawings as graphic explorations in and of themselves in 2019. In this early collection of drawings, they occupy the status of ‘drawings in and of themselves’ when Book was studying at the Memphis College of Art (MCA) where she received a BFA in Sculpture. As was typical, Book experimented with form and materials and their relation to performative actions. In this group there are ‘drawings’ made with hair that the artist gathered from hair salons and barber shops around the city of Memphis. There are also ‘drawings’ that are really paintings on paper; others using unconventional media such as coal slag or liquid rubber. All of these files are digitized color photo slides shot by the artist with her 35mm camera using either ektachrome or kodachrome film and were exhibited within curated exhibitions or in pirate installations that the artist created.