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Drawing at the end of the pier (and contemplating the dive)

18 Sep

The next few posts will be sketchbook drawings from my vacation in North Carolina late August. These drawings reflect a shift in my thinking and drawing. For one, my ideas about America have been crystallized. Unfortunately, I no longer see the promise of a more perfect union because as I have come to realize, this country’s brain damage is permanent. On the drawing front, my sketchbook drawing is becoming the center point of all of my creative work. My next animation and a new series of etchings will be based on the drawings I will be posting here.

Confirming my suspicions, on the spot drawing opens up the brain in ways that a thoughtful and considered drawing can’t. As I have told my drawing students in the past, thinking can kill drawing. Strange but true. Intuition is the driver of great drawing not slow plodding hammering away.

So, at the end of the pier and looking down at the American paradise. It is a sea of broken bodies and broken souls. You be the judge if these drawings reflect something sad, cynical, decaying, bloated, broken, busted, vacant or all of the above or none of the above. I see an endangered species roaming around like a large animal too big and too weird to live with no idea that with each high fructose soda they creep closer to a stressed gurney under fluorescent lights at the end of their world.

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The meek shall inherit the earth – at least what’s left of it

17 Jul

Here are some summer drawings. They were all done either this summer or last in a variety of places. I can remember the time and place I did these drawings with such clarity that I could almost tell you what I was drinking and wearing when I did them. Beer and shorts would apply to many of them.

 

I wonder what the founders of this country would think if they saw us at the edge of a more perfect union measuring our success in flat screen TV’s and cars the size of small houses. The poor are fat and the rich are skinny. I think they’d be booking their flights to Paris tout de suite.

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Drawing is enough

9 Jul


This is a collection of random drawings from the Westchester area and NYC. Looking at them brings back memories. Some are strange sightings from the corner of my eye as I am driving, others are close encounters. Either way it proves that when you are paying attention, it is a frightening world out there. New York in particular is always surprising. For me, the clash of the wealthy and the poor is always jarring. Those worlds don’t often mix but when they do they reveal the dirty little secret that the American Dream is a myth and that the poor have as much of a chance achieving their dreams as the rich do giving up their hard fought dominance.  I am keeping this short because I have finally realized that drawing is enough.

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Drawing the end of the world

15 Jun

Last Saturday night in the pre summer mugginess of Baltimore, I was drawing and thinking about what a strange and magical city this is. A Yankee Oriole’s game had just finished and dumped its fans out into the streets looking to continue the good times. Win or lose, the pace of a baseball game is conducive to drinking and eating too much and when it is over, dawning sobriety in a city of sin like Baltimore is unthinkable.

The people of Baltimore are extremely nice and physically to these eyes, it seemed that short and plump was the city standard. Unlike the menace I have felt in other poor cities such as Hartford, Connecticut, Baltimore has a friendly vibe like the forgotten city eager to please and prove that it is worthy of your time. In my estimation it is and after being glued to the HBO show the Wire, I realized that a city can be deeply flawed in many respects and still be incredibly charming. The night I spent their also had an air of nostalgia. People get very drunk in Baltimore and late night scenes of young women drunk with smeared lipstick and men standing outside of bars smoking large cigars, evoked scenery more befitting of the 1890’s than the start of a new millennium.

The inner harbor was crowded with Yankee fans mostly looking for an overpriced bar that would make them feel more at home. I heard a local say sarcastically, “I love it when the Yankees come to town”, like the ugly Americans have arrived. From the looks of it, they were dead on. Yankees, like the English on holiday in continental Europe, were a loud and obnoxious bunch quickly claiming ownership to the establishments they stretched out their elephantine bodies in. After paying for a few expensive beers I nearly called it a night until I spotted out of the corner of my eye a great little bar called Peter’s. It glittered with decay and the promise of great characters. I was home, and my drawing pencil was furiously dashing about trying to get it all. Above are all the drawings I did that night…

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