Drawing on the ‘ready-to-hand’

What the author terms ‘transitional drawings’ are produced in both the social and autonomous context, and employ abbreviated forms of drawing and other sign-use characterised by indeterminacy, the postponement of premature closure, and the use of ready-to-hand surfaces of inscription that are both dispensable and expendable. This paper correlates the relation of transitional drawings on ready-to-hand surfaces to the experience of early sign use, the mediation this allows between the inner and external world of signs, and the generation of “potential space” (Winnicott, 1971/1982) or “the space between the symbol and the symbolized [where] an interpreting subject comes into being” (Ogden, 1989: 11-12). The paper suggests that transitional drawing on the ready-to-hand enhances the agent’s ability to effectively bridge the gap between the inner and the outer world of signs in the generation, modification and development of ideas.