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Silverpoint Drawing: Memory Etched in Metal​

​Silverpoint is a medium of exacting discipline and quiet beauty. The fine silver lines, once laid down, cannot be erased. Their permanence reminds me of how life leaves marks—some visible, others hidden in the layers of self. Drawing in silver becomes more than image-making; it’s a ritual of memory, a communion with those who drew before, and a recognition that every stroke is both present and future history.

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What’s most haunting is the slow alchemy silver undergoes. Over time, those bright metallic lines shift, darkening into a warm sepia, as if age itself is revealed through the material. These drawings become witnesses to their own transformation. The silver oxidizes, just as experience is softened—or deepened—by time. In that change, something profound emerges: a reminder that memory doesn’t just fade, it evolves. The transformation of silver feels like an echo of my own aging body—no longer pristine, but perhaps richer, more resonant. The drawing and the artist both accrue a patina.

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Silverpoint captures the paradox of permanence and decay. The initial clarity fades into something murkier, but no less meaningful. Like memories that shift with each recollection, silver’s tarnish tells a deeper story. This medium teaches me that beauty is not only in sharp definition, but in the soft sepia impression of what remains.

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The Spine of Stone: Ankylosing Spondylitis

Living with ankylosing spondylitis is like slowly being cast in stone. The spine, that flexible column of movement and expression, stiffens. It becomes something else—rigid, unwavering, maybe even proud. This transformation feels like the body forging its own armor, a defense that also becomes a prison. I imagine myself not just immobilized, but knighted in calcium, crowned with the burden of endurance.

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There’s a strange strength in that image. And yet, it’s isolating. This condition narrows the world. Mindful of gesture movement becomes deliberate. It is a discipline imposed from within. But perhaps that discipline holds symbolic weight—it suggests a kind of integrity, a physical manifestation of a soul unwilling to collapse.

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At the core of this condition is a fire. Not a warming one, but an inflammation that gnaws. I think of this as a mythic flame, coiled around my spine like a dragon or burning at my center like a forge. It could be read as fury at injustice, betrayal, or loss. Or as creative intensity that has nowhere to go and burns inward. This fire tests me. It devours comfort, but it also illuminates hidden parts of me. In its relentlessness, pain becomes a strange kind of companion—fierce, yes, but also clarifying.

 

I live, too, with a fatigue that is not just physical. It’s an existential weight. It drags like wet wool or invisible lead. Brain fog veils my thinking, turning clear skies to mist. This is more than tiredness—it’s disorientation. Sometimes, it feels like being lost in a dreamscape where movement slows and thoughts vanish before they arrive. Yet, paradoxically, this fog has forced me inward. With clarity dimmed, I listen differently to intuition, symbol, and what stirs beneath the surface.

 

In this slowed world, I hope to see things others might miss. There’s insight in stillness, wisdom in silence. The journey with AS is an underworld journey: marked by descent, endurance, and the possibility of transformation.

 

The Closing Hand: Dupuytren’s Contracture

The hand has always been my bridge to the world—through it I’ve painted, gestured, touched, and offered. Now, with Dupuytren’s Contracture, I witness that bridge narrowing. My fingers curl inward, subtly but steadily, like petals closing at dusk. There is no violence in this gesture, just a quiet inevitability. The open hand—a symbol of welcome, creativity, and connection—becomes closed.

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It’s hard not to read this as metaphor. The body turns inward, the hand drawing back into itself. Is it grief that curls the fingers? A reluctance to let go? There is no acute pain, just cramping and a gradual refusal. It reminds me of how some sorrows manifest—not loudly, but through a long inward folding. The hand, once a voice, becomes mute.

 

I find myself wondering what I’m holding onto. Old ambitions? Lost abilities? The act of painting with large, sweeping movements is behind me now. I’ve adapted, working smaller, slower. But that doesn’t make the loss less poignant. Each joint that stiffens feels like a word unsaid. And yet—perhaps—there’s a hidden strength in the fist. Determination, even defiance. If the hand closes, perhaps it's a gesture to gather, protect, or transform?

 

This condition also evokes ancestral echoes. Dupuytren’s runs in the bloodlines of Northern Europeans—Viking blood, some say. It’s strange to think of my hand carrying old myths, curling as if in recognition of some ancient fate. In that lineage, I sense not just a burden but a legacy—a story unfolding not only in my lifetime but across generations.

 

Toward a Mythic Synthesis

A quiet insistence on transformation through constraint unites these images—silverpoint, spine, and hand. The silver line that darkens, the spine that fuses, the hand that closes—all speak of change that cannot be reversed. But not all change is decay. There’s meaning in what shifts, and dignity in what endures.

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Silverpoint reminds me that memory, once etched, may blur but never disappears. It transforms, just as I have. The stiffened spine, with its inner fire, speaks of resilience—not flashy, but forged in pain. And the curling hand, with its diminishing reach, challenges me to find new forms of expression. If I can no longer grasp as I once did, perhaps I can hold with words, or with presence.

 

This personal mythology is not one of triumph over illness, but of acceptance and integration. The ailments don’t vanish; they deepen the story. The artist becomes something else—not just a maker of objects, but a vessel of meaning. 

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In my imagination, I carry a silver stylus—still drawing, though less often. My back may be bowed, but my spirit stands firm. The fire still burns, and though tiring, it also awakens me to other matters. And as my hand draws inward, I look outward with more urgency, knowing that what remains must be said with clarity and care.

 

The patina, the fire, the closing hand—these are not separate afflictions. They are facets of a larger transformation. Through them, I become not less myself, but more essentially so. Each limitation is like a chisel, carving a truer form from the raw block of my life.

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This, then, is the myth I live: the artist who is weathered but not erased. The one who creates not despite constraint, but because of it. Who finds meaning in the mark that cannot be undone, in the fire that refines, in the hand that holds memory tighter even as it lets go of form.