Rob Carpenter: The power of (millions of) lines

Photo above of Rob Carpenter’s “Paths of Moving Points #9,” courtesy of Baton Rouge Gallery and the artist.

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One of Baton Rouge Gallery’s newest artist members talks about his process and getting accepted into the club

One of Baton Rouge Gallery’s newest members, Rob Carpenter has an interesting way of working. His pieces are pencil and colored ink drawings of lines upon lines that create a meticulous sense of texture. He uses German-made technical pens that are hard to find.

“I try to work every day in my studio,” he says. “I’m usually in there three to four hours a day, seven days a week. So a piece will take about a month to complete. But it just depends.”

It’s not random lines, however, that fill the space. He first covers the entire page with a layer of lines, then assesses where he wants to go from that point.

“I plan it out as I go along,” he says. “I’ll attack the next layer then reassess where I need to do what. I usually know a work is completed when there’s not any more room to put any more lines on the page. I literally fill it up. The space gets pretty crowded.”

Carpenter has always had a fascination with lines. Though his most recent work could be considered meditation, the former Nicholls State professor and LSU masters graduate was intrigued with lines while developing illustrative works in 2004. Eventually, he settled into his current process around 2010.

“I was doing a series of illustrations for some stories I had written, and they had rather meticulous line work,” he says. “Then, I ran out of stories. I got writer’s block. As I was finishing up one of these illustrations, one of the students made a comment on the mark-making I was doing. It was a bolt out of the blue. I didn’t have any more stories, but I knew that I really did like making marks on a page.”

In contrast to his earlier illustrations, Carpenter doesn’t any imagery in the line work.

“At this point, to interject an image would take away from a viewer examining the piece on its own terms,” he says. “It’s a very process-oriented way of working. As a result from getting away from illustrations, the pieces have no reference to reality.”

Since he’s retired from Nicholls State, Carpenter lives down the road from Baton Rouge Gallery. He says he attends all the opening receptions and has become friends with a lot of the gallery artists. Though Carpenter had applied to become a member earlier with his illustrations, he wasn’t accepted. Last fall, he was “given a kick in the pants” to apply again. He’ll show some of his works in May, and he’s anticipating what his fellow artist friends might have to say.

“It will be exciting to see the reaction from old friends,” he says.

For more information on Rob Carpenter at Baton Rouge Gallery, click here.