Blind Head Study--3, 24" x 18", charcoal on paper, 1984. Artist's collection.

This charcoal drawing comes from a series of rapidly-executed blind studies made early in the idea's evolution. This sketch is more pleasing to the eye in terms of the cohesiveness of the features of the figures than the results of later blind works. It was precisely the element of "automatic", "pre-thought", standard figurative cohesion that the blind experiment was designed to obliterate for the purpose of making confoundingly original works--confounding and original even to the eye and sensibilities of the artist who produced them. The core intent of the blind experiment was an attempt to remove all rote visual pretense from the process of creating an image.