Victor Hugo was not just a great writer. He was also a notable visual artist who worked mostly in pen and ink, creating mysterious, Gothic, romantic, images beginning with almost Rorschach like blotches of ink that expanded into images . I first saw his drawings at the Victor Hugo museum in Paris in the mid ‘80’s. Some years later they inspired my own exploration of the abstract potential that I saw in the beginning of his pieces: the evocative power of the intersection of drips and splotches. The intersection of shapes evoked for me the tension of trapeze artists whose flight on wires must, so neatly, meet the movement of his mate. I began with ink, moved on to “painting” with coffee and tea and eventually to water colors. This is a selection of some of my favorites.
