I featured my dad’s shaving mirror (which is still hanging on the wall in my studio) in this rare pre-beard self-portrait of myself, aged 16, from my first year at Batley School of Art in 1967.
I’d recently come across dip pen and Indian ink for drawing and I was fascinated by 19th century engravings, hence all that cross-hatching. This was probably drawn with the finest nib I’d come across, the Gillot 1950.
At about that time I’d been reading J. W. Dunne’s An Experiment with Time and Nothing Dies, which might explain my interest in infinite progression:
- the drawing isn’t complete without the sketchbook that is lying on the table in front of the mirror
- drawing of the sketchbook isn’t complete until it includes said drawing
- and the drawing of the drawing isn’t complete until . . . etc, etc, ad infinitum