People often lean in close when they see this one. They see the initials—I.N.Y.S.M.C.—and they ask if there is a story behind it. There is, of course. There always is. It is a story of a specific room, a specific heat, and the way a body feels when it is trying to fold itself into another person to escape the world outside. I remember the silence of the studio that day, a silence that felt heavy enough to lean against.
When I sat down with my pencils for this piece, I wasn't thinking about anatomy in a clinical sense. I was thinking about the architecture of desire. My hand moved with a certain urgency, tracing the sharp edge of a shoulder blade and the soft, vulnerable curve of the belly. I wanted the lines to feel like they were vibrating, caught in that precarious space between a caress and a grip. The friction of the lead against the paper felt like a confession.
The starkness of the black against the white is intentional. I find that color can sometimes be a distraction, a way to soften the blow of a raw emotion. Here, I wanted the honesty of the graphite to do the heavy lifting. There is a certain nakedness in a pencil line that mirrors the nakedness of the figures; it is unapologetic and permanent. It reveals every hesitation and every burst of certainty in the hand that held the tool.
“I wanted to draw the specific ache of a connection that lingers long after the skin has cooled.”— Kaethe Butcher, Studio Notes,
The title is a code, a shorthand for a sentiment that felt too heavy to write out in full. It acts as a boundary, keeping the most intimate details for myself while allowing the viewer to project their own longing onto the forms. It represents that desperate, beautiful need to be understood without having to speak a single word. It is about the things we whisper into the skin of another when the lights are low.
Looking back at it now, I see a map of a moment that no longer exists. The drawing has become a vessel for a memory that has since shifted and changed, but the lines remain as sharp as they were the day I made them. It is a reminder that our bodies hold onto stories long after we think we have moved on. It remains one of the most honest things I have ever put to paper.
