Study for "Black Lightning" (PB7) 1978

Ronald Bladen made this drawing, called "Study for Black Lightning," with graphite on paper. I find it really cool how the lines, though simple, give you this sense of a massive, almost impossible object hanging in space. The cool thing about graphite is you can get so many different effects depending on the pressure, the angle, or the kind of paper. Here, Bladen keeps it really controlled, but even with that control, you can see the subtle changes in the width of the line, especially where the planes of the lightning bolt meet. It's like he's not just drawing a shape, but also thinking about weight, about how this thing could actually exist. It puts me in mind of some of Sol LeWitt’s wall drawings, which are so precise, yet still feel handmade, you know? It's like a conversation across time, where artists are always rethinking how we see and understand the world. And that's what makes art so endlessly interesting.