1
00:00:11,180 --> 00:00:14,420
[Bali, Indonesia]

2
00:00:15,680 --> 00:00:21,420
Because the sun sets at the same time
all year round in Bali,

3
00:00:22,780 --> 00:00:25,660
there's a sense that time is standing still--

4
00:00:25,660 --> 00:00:28,700
that it's just one long summer.

5
00:00:32,880 --> 00:00:35,820
There's this feeling of peacefulness

6
00:00:35,820 --> 00:00:38,480
and of not feeling rushed.

7
00:00:39,740 --> 00:00:43,980
This routine that is really tied into
the rhythm of the world around you.

8
00:00:43,980 --> 00:00:45,480
[Sound of ducks quacking]

9
00:00:52,100 --> 00:00:55,500
["Drawing from Life in Bali"]

10
00:00:59,100 --> 00:01:01,980
New York is where I'm from,
and it's where I grew up,

11
00:01:01,980 --> 00:01:04,960
and it's still where
I will always come back to.

12
00:01:05,340 --> 00:01:08,920
But I also know that the most important thing
to make good work

13
00:01:10,620 --> 00:01:11,920
is time

14
00:01:12,780 --> 00:01:13,940
and space.

15
00:01:13,940 --> 00:01:15,560
Living in Bali,

16
00:01:15,560 --> 00:01:17,760
that's where I was going to
have the most of it.

17
00:01:22,940 --> 00:01:25,840
I wake up around 6:30

18
00:01:25,840 --> 00:01:28,140
because the sunrise is so bright.

19
00:01:29,520 --> 00:01:33,640
By 8:30, I start setting things up
in the studio.

20
00:01:34,900 --> 00:01:39,240
The cat gets locked outside
so that he doesn't run all over the drawings.

21
00:01:47,720 --> 00:01:51,700
Nopi and Wiwik would arrive at 9:00,

22
00:01:53,960 --> 00:01:56,980
--Draw from here to here?

23
00:01:56,980 --> 00:01:57,800
--Yeah.

24
00:02:04,880 --> 00:02:10,320
and Nyoman around 10:30
to do the offerings for the house.

25
00:02:30,560 --> 00:02:36,580
It's this nonstop flow of
ceremonies and rituals.

26
00:02:41,720 --> 00:02:44,940
Everybody is tending to the energy
of the island.

27
00:02:44,960 --> 00:02:47,180
Everybody is feeding it.

28
00:02:52,060 --> 00:02:56,960
In Bali, there are these temples
built around naturally occurring springs.

29
00:02:57,400 --> 00:03:00,440
You approach the water and have this feeling

30
00:03:00,440 --> 00:03:03,099
of deep reverence and deep respect

31
00:03:03,100 --> 00:03:06,100
for this place and this substance.

32
00:03:08,180 --> 00:03:12,780
And then, that you get to go inside of it
is really powerful--

33
00:03:13,340 --> 00:03:16,160
this feeling of going down and going in.

34
00:03:18,740 --> 00:03:22,980
The next day, I always felt
that something had been let go of--

35
00:03:22,980 --> 00:03:27,640
that something really had been washed off
that I was carrying around.

36
00:03:28,500 --> 00:03:33,140
I wanted to be able to draw something
from that experience--

37
00:03:34,020 --> 00:03:38,340
to try and make a visual memory.

38
00:03:45,820 --> 00:03:49,540
Drawing is not something that flourishes
in the tropics.

39
00:03:50,140 --> 00:03:52,600
Paper will not last.

40
00:03:53,280 --> 00:03:55,420
The air is extremely humid,

41
00:03:55,420 --> 00:03:58,780
so many pages are going to warp in a few days.

42
00:03:59,240 --> 00:04:03,140
I was able to have this
very simple glass case made

43
00:04:03,140 --> 00:04:06,260
so I could put a small dehumidifier in.

44
00:04:06,680 --> 00:04:10,520
Anything that I wasn't currently working on
would just stay in there.

45
00:04:18,360 --> 00:04:22,120
Penestanan was a small village
that was built by

46
00:04:22,120 --> 00:04:25,020
the community of traditional Balinese artists.

47
00:04:25,880 --> 00:04:27,760
Expats started moving there

48
00:04:27,760 --> 00:04:31,159
and things started to develop
further into the rice fields.

49
00:04:32,100 --> 00:04:34,320
There was a big footprint that happened

50
00:04:34,320 --> 00:04:37,340
from all of us tourists being there.

51
00:04:37,920 --> 00:04:41,580
In just the three years that I've been there,
I've seen it change a lot.

52
00:04:42,840 --> 00:04:47,080
But life manages to go on somehow,

53
00:04:47,480 --> 00:04:49,260
uninterrupted by it.

54
00:04:52,120 --> 00:04:56,020
I had moved to this new country
and I didn't have any friends there.

55
00:05:04,000 --> 00:05:07,500
The scariest part was
my relationship had ended,

56
00:05:07,500 --> 00:05:12,760
and I wasn't sure how I could make the work
not being in love,

57
00:05:14,580 --> 00:05:20,039
because it always felt like
love brought so much exuberance

58
00:05:20,039 --> 00:05:23,899
and that was really the source for my drawings

59
00:05:23,899 --> 00:05:25,720
for a very long time--

60
00:05:25,720 --> 00:05:28,500
at least for what I considered to be
my best work.

61
00:05:29,480 --> 00:05:30,600
And I just thought,

62
00:05:32,280 --> 00:05:34,560
"I don't know if I can draw if I'm sad."

63
00:05:34,560 --> 00:05:36,300
"I don't know if I can draw if I'm depressed."

64
00:05:36,300 --> 00:05:39,820
"I don't know if I can draw when I'm fearful."

65
00:05:40,540 --> 00:05:45,000
And, actually, it was so nice to be able to
have drawing,

66
00:05:45,000 --> 00:05:49,020
because it was like the one part of my life
that was still the same.

67
00:05:50,520 --> 00:05:53,060
Me in the studio with paper

68
00:05:53,060 --> 00:05:56,060
was there whether or not I was in a relationship.

69
00:05:56,340 --> 00:05:58,900
It's definitely not as easy as
when you're in love,

70
00:05:58,900 --> 00:06:00,400
but it's possible,

71
00:06:00,400 --> 00:06:03,740
and it's so nice to have a practice
that sustains you.

72
00:06:05,580 --> 00:06:08,200
[The Drawing Center, SoHo, Manhattan]

73
00:06:27,660 --> 00:06:31,300
When I had the opportunity to
do the show at The Drawing Center,

74
00:06:31,740 --> 00:06:36,720
I wanted to imagine energy
taking a form of a physical body.

75
00:06:38,420 --> 00:06:40,640
I drew an embryo forming.

76
00:06:41,060 --> 00:06:44,760
I looked at some scientific diagrams
of how cells divide,

77
00:06:47,620 --> 00:06:49,980
and then just sort of follow that
through a life--

78
00:06:50,720 --> 00:06:53,380
finishing at the disintegration of the body

79
00:06:54,340 --> 00:06:56,300
and return to formlessness.

80
00:07:10,080 --> 00:07:14,280
I knew I wanted to do this oval room
that was one big drawing

81
00:07:14,280 --> 00:07:17,140
and in the same air as you were.

82
00:07:17,700 --> 00:07:20,800
That it was fragile but it held together.

83
00:07:21,720 --> 00:07:28,180
Having the work unframed was this
really nice aspect of vulnerability.

84
00:07:28,180 --> 00:07:31,660
That was really how I'd felt
that year back in Bali:

85
00:07:31,660 --> 00:07:32,940
super vulnerable.

86
00:07:43,640 --> 00:07:46,840
Aaron composed the music in the space
for the drawings.

87
00:07:48,900 --> 00:07:52,040
It was this sort of very sparse compositions

88
00:07:52,040 --> 00:07:54,720
that felt like a slow breath.

89
00:07:57,400 --> 00:07:59,779
And, really, I think it was

90
00:07:59,779 --> 00:08:03,960
the sound of Aaron's gamelans
that gave this very peaceful atmosphere

91
00:08:03,960 --> 00:08:07,940
where people kind of felt this sanctuary
that they had stepped into,

92
00:08:07,940 --> 00:08:09,160
having come off the street.

93
00:08:10,570 --> 00:08:11,700
I know, for myself,

94
00:08:11,710 --> 00:08:13,800
even when I come across
something that I love--

95
00:08:13,800 --> 00:08:16,380
that maybe I've travelled far to go see--

96
00:08:17,100 --> 00:08:20,440
sometimes you only spend
thirty seconds in front of it.

97
00:08:22,800 --> 00:08:24,120
I was really thinking about

98
00:08:24,120 --> 00:08:27,180
how much time we spend
in front of a work of art.

99
00:08:28,700 --> 00:08:33,260
And I always wanted to make an atmosphere
where someone would have long enough

100
00:08:33,260 --> 00:08:35,740
to travel through the drawings in their mind.

101
00:08:39,160 --> 00:08:44,500
I realized that that moment is actually
more beautiful to me than any finished drawing,

102
00:08:44,500 --> 00:08:49,000
because it's the potential of a drawing
that I'm never actually able to make.

103
00:08:54,860 --> 00:08:59,580
[Since filming,
Louise met someone new and they had a child.]

104
00:08:59,580 --> 00:09:02,760
[They still live in Bali.]