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Native Places by Frank Harmon

NEWS&OBSERVER: “Architect’s signature drawings go beyond art. They tell stories of the world around us.”

Native Places by Frank Harmon

BY J. MICHAEL WELTON

Raleigh architect Frank Harmon sketches at least once a day, in a style that’s best described as economical. His lines are spare, a squiggle inserted here or there for punctuation and a splash of color added for emphasis.

“There are as few gestures as possible to capture a multi-layered spirit,” says New York Tod Williams in an interview about Harmon’s work. “There’s almost always an element of landscape and something out of the ordinary and something extraordinary. A world emerges.”

A selection of 64 of his drawings, with equally thoughtful essays to accompany them, are in a new book called “Native Places: Drawing as a Way to See.” They’re taken from Harmon’s online collection of sketches and words in his “Native Places” blog. He makes at least one sketch a day, publishing many of them online for the past four years. READ MORE