For their first Slow Art Day, The Red Awl in Clarkdale, Arizona, featured four tiny ink-on-paper drawings by Karen McClanahan. The drawings were chosen because they align with the mission of The Red Awl to create, exhibit, and promote handcrafted, quirky, and often humorous artists’ books and fine art multiples.
The Red Awl is an artist-run project space located in a 100+ year old building in the small town of Clarkdale, Arizona. The building contains studios, a workshop, a copy room with a vintage Xerox machine, and a 242 square foot office lobby that serves as a project and exhibition space.
On Slow Art Day 2024, visitors were welcomed and asked to sign an antique ledger guestbook, then they were invited to read a short statement describing Slow Art Day along with an introduction to the drawings on view. Since this was the first time The Red Awl hosted Slow Art Day, they opted for a casual event instead of a formal program. The artist, Karen McClanahan, was on site to engage in discussions and answer questions throughout the day. An extra detail is that all visitors were asked to put away their cell phones and not take any photos or videos during their visit. This allowed them to stay present with the drawings and the artist.
Slow Art Day participants were encouraged to look at the tiny drawings – first with an unaided eye and then with a magnifying glass. This allowed them to see the details up close at a similar magnification as the artist had drawn them. The drawings by McClanahan are small – measuring at 1 in. by 1-5/8 in., or slightly larger than a postage stamp. The size of the works offer a unique way to look slowly, as the intimate scale of the artwork requires a close view, making slowing down imperative.
McClanahan meticulously drew the tiny abstract compositions using a Bic ballpoint pen, a Micron pen, a straight edge ruler, a steady hand, and high-powered reading glasses.
After viewing the works, visitors moved on to view a portfolio with the additional original book “plates” and the finished book titled “Ink vs. Ink.” Seeing the larger context of the four works showed visitors how the artist achieved a conceptual book narrative using pure abstraction.
Informal discussions focused on the various allusions to landscape, the human body, architecture, nature, and fabric. There were many questions regarding the drawing technique itself and how the miniature drawings were created using a humble Bic ballpoint pen.
At Slow Art Day HQ, we love this alignment of the small drawings with the mission of the exhibition space (and the magnifying glasses are cool).
We look forward to whatever The Red Awl comes up with for their second Slow Art Day in 2025.
-Johanna, Ashley, Jessica Jane, and Phyl
P.S. Slow Art Day 2025 is coming up on April 5. If you have not done so, please register your museum, gallery, church, sculpture park here: https://www.slowartday.com/be-a-host/