SUMI INK CLUB

“Our philosophy of drawing has always been that if you arrive and the paper already has something on it, what a relief, because you already have something to react to and build on, so it’s more like other human interactions. But just approaching a field of white is very daunting.”

Sumi Ink Club is a participatory drawing project established in 2005 by Los Angeles–based artists Luke Fischbeck and Sarah Rara. The club produces work collectively in meetings which are open to the public and can be organized by anyone, anytime. Everyone comes together to draw: the young, the old, people who are considered good at drawing, and people who think they can’t draw at all. The result is art that feels as if one impossible person created it.

Fischbeck’s and Rara’s work has been shown at the Whitney Museum of American Art and London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts, among other esteemed places. They also perform music as Lucky Dragons, an experimental and collaborative band that has been active since 2000.

Sumi Ink Club’s notebooks for Plumb reflect the collaborative nature of their creative process. “I’d really like to make a notebook that somebody’s best friend would feel they can grab and leave something in,” says Rara. “It’s that kind of spirit where it can be for focus and deep thought, but it can also be something that is passed around and shared.”

Plumb Notebooks

• Day + Night Journals
• Sumi Starter Pack

Group exhibitions

• Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
• Pasadena Museum of California Art, Pasadena, CA
• Riverside Art Museum, Riverside, CA
• Noguchi Museum, Long Island City, NY

Performances

• Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, CA
• MOCA, Los Angeles, CA
• MUDAM, Berlin, Germany
• Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN
• LACMA, Los Angeles, CA