Daily Drawings is Cathy Braasch’s series of durational works on paper in ink and graphite. Braasch constructs each image by adding one layer per weekday over the course of a month.
Together, these drawings become a personal, graphic record of time, experience, and perception, rendered with deliberateness and happenstance alike. The earliest version of the Daily Drawings began in 2013. At home with a baby, Braasch developed this method to create the mental and physical space for creative production. The series’ scale, medium, and process fit in a small domestic space and accommodate the unpredictable rhythms of caregiving. The series, represented here by work from August 2022 to January 2025, has continued to be productive for Braasch as a starting point for other projects and a means to create continuity even in the most erratic phases of life.
Conceptually, the drawings operate simultaneously across three interconnected scales. First, the personal experience — a meditative ritual that accepts the variations and incongruities of daily life and is a receptacle for memory. Then, imagined as architectural studies — the accumulation of simple geometries generating complexity. Finally, at the scale of the city — a reflection of the inspiring, incremental development of the built environment and the productive qualities that arise from this growth. This series illuminates the gap between one day’s modest effort, as humble as a few lines, and the density and breadth of persistent efforts over time. For Braasch, the ritual of daily drawing has provided both support and stimulus. The work encourages the appreciation not only of the outcomes but also of the experience of creative production.
Bio
Cathy
Braasch is an artist, architect, and educator. She is the principal of
Braasch Architecture and was an associate teaching professor in Penn
State’s Department of Architecture. Her research interests include
foundational design pedagogy and diversifying participants in the built
environment. She founded the Robert Reed Drawing Workshops, celebrating
the pioneering educator and artist, the first and until recently only
tenured Black professor at the Yale School of Art. Braasch
Architecture’s work is comprised of commercial and residential projects
emphasizing flexibility. Previously, she worked at Stoss Landscape
Urbanism, Stephen Yablon Architect, and Della Valle Bernheimer. She
began the Daily Drawing series in 2012 and has exhibited earlier stages
in 2017 and 2019. She received a Master of Architecture at Harvard’s
Graduate School of Design and a Bachelor of Arts at Yale. She has just
relocated to Seattle, Washington.