Ballpoint Coyotes

Since 2019, I have studied San Francisco’s population of urban coyotes, spending hours in the field watching their behaviors, responses, and interactions with each other and with their human and animal neighbors. When coyotes hunt, they pounce in an arc like an arrow fired toward their target. Studies suggest that wild canids may use the Earth’s magnetic field to geolocate their prey, perhaps utilizing pairs of quantum-entangled particles located in retinal protein as an extrasensory receptor. Out of this naturalist practice, a growing body of meticulously rendered ballpoint pen drawings has emerged, created using Growth Spells, a mark-making ritual I devised to induce flow states. The drawings are intuitive channelings of coyotes in dynamic motion, with lines often resembling magnetic fields, responding to tension and what has elapsed on the page.