who? | lonehoof

An Interview with Lone Hoof
Conducted by Special FBI Agent Dale Cooper*

DALE COOPER (clicks on tape recorder)

Diane, it’s 9:23 a.m. I’m seated across from an artist who goes by the name Lone Hoof. There’s a stillness in the air, the kind you get just before something meaningful starts to happen.

Lone Hoof - I have to ask: your name — it’s evocative. Solitary. Animal. Frontier-like. Tell me where it comes from. What does Lone Hoof mean to you?

LONE HOOF

It means doing things alone, Cooper. It means doing things my way. And yes, it's true I began all this at the kitchen table drawing horses smoking pipes, and yes that's where the Hoof comes into it, but I think you knew that already, Cooper. Why don't you ask me what's really on your mind?

DALE COOPER (leans forward, eyes narrowing just slightly)

All right.

What is it you’re chasing, Lone Hoof?

Because a person doesn’t sit alone at a kitchen table sketching a horse with a pipe for no reason. There’s a feeling behind that. Maybe it's peace. Maybe it’s control. Maybe it’s something older, deeper — the kind of thing that doesn’t need words, only ink, paper, and silence.

So tell me. When you're making — truly lost in it — what happens to you?

LONE HOOF

Have you ever considered the elemental nature of charcoal, Cooper? Burnt wood - that's all it is - and yet it contains all the possibilities of light. It contains all the possibilities of darkness.

One might look upon that charcoal and exclaim, burnt wood; what can be expressed with burnt wood? Yet it's all there between my thumb and forefinger, and when I'm sat there making my marks upon the paper, when I'm realizing the image in my head, when I'm bringing to life the title that compelled me to do so, the burden of infinite choices that might have been made with a pencil or paintbrush, Cooper, they're taken from me by that elemental power: the humble charcoal.

It's simple, Cooper. It always has been. We make our marks with our charcoal. That's all it was; that's all it will ever be.

You know that.

DALE COOPER (quiet for a moment, then smiles faintly)

Yes. Yes, I do.

There's a kind of truth in what you’ve said — the kind you can’t quite explain to people at parties. The kind that lives in the grain of the paper and the black on your fingers. You’re not just making art, Lone Hoof. You’re communing with the past. With fire. With trees that once stood upright and proud.

I have to ask — because this matters to me deeply — do you believe, when someone looks at your work... they can feel it? Not just see it, but feel the moment that mark was made? The intention in the stroke, the breath you took before you placed it there?

Because if not, well... then we’re just rearranging the furniture. And I don’t think that’s what you’re doing.

LONE HOOF

You have a keen understanding of this, Cooper. A man with charcoal in his hand might look upon it and suddenly feel all his hairs stand on end, straight as soldiers, as it dawns on him, 'Fire draws with me'.

Can the viewer of these artworks feel any of this? No one on Gods Green Earth knows the answer to that question, Cooper, but I'll tell you this: I'll tell you how it feels to me - because there is texture here, Cooper, and we both know it. That's why you asked me the damn question in the first place.

I know you feel it too, Cooper: the texture of grey static; the texture of an old TV transmitting images from a distant age, and when we look upon it, maybe there is a message there in amongst all those blank faced folk in hats and scarves, or maybe it's just old movies with no audience and nothing to say.

DALE COOPER (nods slowly, eyes distant)

That’s it. That’s exactly it.

The texture.

It’s not about clarity, it’s about presence.

That static — that grey, flickering hum — it means something, even if the message is half-lost in the noise. That’s where the truth hides. In the almost-recognizable. In the half-remembered. In the charcoal blur where a face might have been, or a hoof, or just the memory of one.

Lone Hoof, when you look at the finished piece — not just what’s there, but what isn’t — do you ever feel haunted by the version you didn’t draw? The path not taken? Or do you let it go when you put the charcoal down?

LONE HOOF

There's always regret along the way, Cooper.

Should I have given the man a longer scarf? A shorter one perhaps but a taller hat? Charcoal may have liberated me from the tyranny of color, Cooper, but composition and the efficiency of a line upon the paper are choices no man can ignore; choosing where to make our mark is all we are, Cooper. Me, you and the owls in the trees.

Perhaps we can talk again someday or maybe these were our only marks upon the page together. It's only charcoal, Cooper. I want you to think about that.

DALE COOPER

It’s only charcoal... and yet it carries the weight of whole worlds.

Thank you, Lone Hoof. For your time. For your marks. For reminding me — and whoever’s listening — that simplicity can be sacred, and that in every smudge, every shadow, there’s a decision. A presence. A voice.

I’ll be seeing your work again soon. I don’t know where. Maybe not even in a gallery. Maybe just in a dream.

And when I do, I’ll recognize it. Because... fire draws with you.

And the owls, Lone Hoof... the owls are not what they seem.

*I asked Chatgpt to interview me as Agent Cooper. All the answers are my own. I think I may have been channeling the character of Mike, the One Armed Man, from Twin Peaks (!)