Renato Ortega: Ten Thousand Things That Breathe

ball-point pen drawings by RENATO

In Taoist and Zen literature, “Ten Thousand Things” expresses infinity — referring to all things in the universe. To say all things in the universe breathe is to say every particle is filled with life.

I have chosen the simple and never-ending practice of creating ball-point pen drawings. My subject matter includes bottle caps, a section of a bamboo flute, a tangled pile of dried fish. The objects I draw are not bound by category or culture. They are things which happen into my path and fill me with the need to draw.

There is no thought of representation or illustration in the creation of the drawings.

The process is simple. I see an object, sit before it, and touch the object with my eyes. My gaze gradually moves over, and somehow, beneath, the object’s surface. It is not an exclusively visual experience; there is also a tactile aspect: like knowing the sharpness of a blade by looking at a mound of cut clay, or understanding the thickness and stickiness of paint and the quick motion of the making by seeing a Jackson Pollock painting.

In touching an object with my eyes, I have felt the space between the bodies of tiny dried fish. I have felt my thumb pressed on a bamboo flute’s slight depression. I have felt the weight of a dead bird.

In drawing Ten Thousand Things That Breathe, I have come to grasp the minute experience of gently brushing the tip of a ball-point pen along the paper’s fibers, and pressing the film of greasy ink into the paper’s tiny pits. Every drawing is an expression of a continuing moment, not unlike the slow inhalation and exhalation in breathing meditation, or the mindful shifting of weight in Tai Chi.

The tip of my ball-point pen rolls on paper. I draw until the drawing breathes. Then I let the object go. I move to another, and continue the cycle.