David Sarallo Gallery: planets

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

The End

In 2008 I began drawing in a sketchbook. The book itself originally had 50 pages which I planned to fill with various mysterious writings and sketches. I wanted it to be a strange book that would look as if it came from some unknown civilization, with blueprints to enigmatic machinery, ancient star charts, and stories impossible to decipher.

As I drew on each page, front and back, I included little codes to my own imagination. Symbols and letters that actually meant something to me. I added established symbols, allusions to various religions, and started becoming more and more serious about the drawings themselves.

Along the way I discarded two pages, unhappy with the outcome. I now cared about how the drawings looked.

The drawings became more and more time consuming to produce. I also began to feel a deeper connection with what was being imprinted onto the page. Eventually I discovered that I was engaging in a conversation with my own subconscious. The key question that developed in these dialogues became, "what are you trying to tell me?"

The goal originally had been to create something that would appear to be a mystery to others, images from a strange and forgotten world. Instead, The Book became a mystery to me; coded information inviting me on a journey deep into my DNA, my past, and, if it exists, my soul.

There's a sense that a drawing done in 2010 might be needed in 2016, 2024, or in 2065 when I'll be 87 years old. Perhaps the 87 year old me has something that he desperately needs to know that only the 2010 me can explain. The Book is an encyclopedia of my inner self, my True Self. The mission now is to interpret it, decipher meaning, mine for truth and understanding.

The 50 pages, reduced to 48, covered front to back, began with the following "title page." I'll name this piece The Beginning.

The first of 96 total drawings, it was done with a Pilot EasyTouch Medium ball point pen. The symbol in the middle seems to be assembled with sections of dead tree trunks. There's a banner with the I Before Infinity (or 18) indication followed by three mysterious symbols. All around the rim of the circle there are more symbols, though I see now that I included the first letters of some of my other artistic personae, other aliases.

Planets, a star chart, a large I Before Infinity, and a combination of the initials of my legal birth given name. I have no idea what some of those symbols mean, nor do I know what planets these are or where in the heavens the stars in the chart are located. And that's it. That's The Beginning.

So to finish out The Book I thought it only fitting to draw, once again, this title page. Only this time, I will call it The End.

The symbol in the middle has become wider, a planet went missing (completely by accident) from the upper right, and I've consciously replaced the initials of my birth name with a planet bearing my chosen artistic persona David Sarallo. The drawing is now contained within a border, the features are tidier and more contained, but I recopied each and every symbol exactly as they appear in the original. There was something ghostly and empty that came with the completion of this drawing and The Book. So I ask my subconscious, "what are you trying to tell me?" Is it that you can never go back? Attempting to recreate something from the past, an image from the past (as all of the past now is...images), does this ring with a hollow sound now in the present? But there are differences and that language still hasn't been interpreted. Will I be 87 and finally learn to read the symbols of The Book?

I encourage you now to have a dialogue with your own subconscious. Whether it comes through drawing, painting, writing, dance...whatever it is you can do to allow what hides inside out...give it a try. Look back at what you've done. Converse. I feel it will be very valuable, as this collection of drawings is to me.

Thank you, and have a wonderful and prosperous 2014.