Drawing my way to nothing

The evening's work is below.

Slowly I'm getting to the point where I need to start understanding this project on a macro scale. There are many angles and trajectories (my second favourite word) to consider and one of the best ways to sort stuff out is making tiny drawings or paintings. The scale is so intimate and I generally do them on a tattered piece of cardboard wedged into my desk. These small pieces are really evidence of investigation. At least to me, the end result is an object, but it's the detached investigation – loose and undetermined – that takes place while I draw that seems most worthwhile.

And that is at least part of what this project will be: a consideration of the subjective view of the works; how a viewer will think about these soldiers, how the soldiers felt about me and vice versa. It's the "misreadings" that carry the weight. To the grunts, I am an artist, to the art audience I'm often seen as an ex-soldier. To the soldiers, art viewers are aliens possessed of strange habits and to that same viewing audience, the grunts are defined by the many cultural depictions of them that already exist.

What I wanted to say was this: I don't know where this project will actually go until I get over to and return from Kabul. Hopefully both the escape and return will take place, but until then, the largest part of the project is an unknown.

So until then, here's a small (6"x6") drawing that stands for me wondering if I'll be scared, bored, amputated, thrilled and/or perplexed by the city of Kabul.