Neoteric drawings

I'm a sculptor living in exile from my clay studio for another month, so I'm obsessed with the feel of things.  I'm all about textures right now.  I'm thinking about juxtapositions of textures, colors, light, patterns, shapes, lines.  I like contrasting digital photograph backgrounds and drawings, especially unexpected combinations that give you a jolt of recognition or surprise.  I like having to figure out what you're looking at, while you're looking at it.  I like the tactile element that the lace, stucco, cement lend to the drawings.   I like the extra dimension.

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Drip, drip, drip goes New England

An occasional drip from the kitchen ceiling punctuates my breakfast; steady splats from the dining room ceiling accompany my bill paying; sporadic plops from my studio ceiling interrupt my drawing.  I'm living in a thawing state of emergency.  Three blizzards and a couple of storms brought us a record 100" of snow, which is starting to melt.  One drip at a time, massive amounts of melting snow produce some of the most spectacular icicles I've ever seen.  Some of them are on the front of our house where our front door is currently frozen shut.  Almost all of our windows have icicles, inside and out, and are frozen closed until spring.

It feels like we're under siege.  We're shut inside because the roads are treacherous and the sub zero temperatures are life threatening.  Snow reaches halfway up the house, windows are covered with snow drifts and doors are iced shut more securely than any lock.  Inside, the house feels increasingly out of control.  Towels and buckets collect drips; stains spread, paint blisters and drywall bubbles on the ceilings; the rugs are rolled up and furniture moved out of the way of water damage.  Feels like the ongoing forces of entropy and destruction are at work.  And as much as I long for winter to end, I know the spring thaw will inevitably bring not only mud but flooding.  Our basement has always thought it was a tributary of the Charles River and floods periodically.  We have an industrial strength sump pump, plus a back up, and last year we need both but had only a fraction of the snow we have this year.  Ominous.

I can hear two different crews shoveling my neighbors' roofs - both whacking away at the ice dams with huge mallets.  I have to run some errands.  Backing out of our driveway these days means inching along, lights on, very slowly since there is no possibility of seeing anything from either side with snow piles that are taller than the street signs.  Made it!  Didn't hit anything or anyone.  I went to the bank and there on the counter sat a bucket catching drips.  I went to the grocery store and a couple of firemen were inspecting the ceiling over the bananas I was about to buy while another team of firemen used a massive extension ladder to get to the roof of the building to shovel off the snow.  When I went to a doctor's appointment, everyone I talked to - receptionist, nurses, doctor - has either a burst pipe or dripping ceilings.  We all have gigantic snow piles, snow covered roofs and driveways that are basically tunnels.  We all  have our snow sagas.

But I no longer feel like I'm in a personal disaster zone; I'm participating in an ongoing weather event happening to everyone.  It's interesting that so many places have broken weather records this year:   hottest, coldest, wettest, driest, most snowfall, most rain.  Global climate change couldn't possibly have anything to do with any of this, could it?

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Snow days

Polar Bear

The blizzard of the week screamed in last night.   Snow falling relentlessly over Boston transforms our streets into another city, another planet.  But for me, this is a blast from my past.  When my kids were little, we lived in NE Wisconsin and we had winters just like this one.  Lots of snow, lots of cold.  And the sub zero cold there is serious; it wants to kill you.  We heated our uninsulated 100 year old farmhouse with a woodstove.  The fire couldn't go out from about Thanksgiving to Easter or the pipes would freeze.  We had a lot of power outages, but at least I could cook ontop of the woodstove, which takes forever, but does work.  I would start a pot of chili first thing in the morning to have it ready by dinner.

And here's the funny thing.  I love snow days.  You'd think being cooped up in a small house with kids, dogs and cats with no Internet, cellphones or laptops  with no possibility of getting out for days would drive you nuts.  But I loved it.  We were glad to be warm and fed and dry.  We read, drew, colored, cooked, built stuff, looked up things in the encyclopedia.  We talked to each other.  And for a really wild time, we put a record on the record player and danced.

And the chili?  Almost never made it past lunch time.  There were testing spoons checking it out by 10 in the morning and by noon, it was always pronounced perfect.  In a snowed in house in the dead of winter,  snow days can be heaven.



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Drawing on the T

Pen and ink drawings

I sketch on the "T",  the MBTA  or Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, Boston's excellent public transit system.  I draw people as unobtrusively as I can.  While I've never asked permission to draw anyone, I try to be respectful of everyone's privacy and I don't want to make anyone uncomfortable.  I bring along some business cards, so if somebody asks what I'm doing, I can hand out a card which explains that I'm an artist.  The comments I receive on my drawings in public are invariably enthusiastic and positive.  A frequent remark is "I didn't know anybody could still do that," which I think means "draw from life", which is reason enough for me to keep at it.  I love drawing the many faces of  the human comedy.  

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Airport drawings

Pen and ink

Airport sleeper

Passengers Waiting 

Waiting in Airport

Waiting at the Gate

Waiting in Airport

Waiting in Airport

Cellphone check

Airport nap

Texting

Resting

Airports are great for drawing because you see all kinds of people in an airport:  young and old, fat and thin, tall and short, rich and poor, healthy and sick.  The full spectrum of the human condition unfolds, waiting to be drawn. 

Each human figure is a philosophical statement as much as it is a visual one.  The posture, physique and body language explain so much about the beliefs and habits of the person.  The clothes and grooming describe the economic condition; the pose illustrates the mood of the moment.  In the healthy young man striding purposefully, you can read a belief in upward mobility; self confidence is obvious in his bearing; self discipline can be deduced from his physical fitness; rationality and the power of positive thinking are clearly visible in his behavior. In an aging woman pacing along, you can see a quiet despair: the pain of past loss; the discomfort of present failing health; fear of the future in her uncertain gait.  In the elderly man resting, there is strength of character and the firm belief in work ethic, as well as the disillusionment of dreams slowly eroded by the realties of life.  

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Airplane drawings

Pen and ink

For me, drawing pens, ink and paper are essential travel items.  I love to draw people in public places, so naturally I draw when I'm traveling.  The infinite variety of sizes, shapes, personalities, conditions and features of human beings is a constant source of inspiration.  An airplane can contain an amazing cross section of humanity, so it's a wonderful place to draw.  I don't like artificial looking poses; I prefer drawing subjects in natural positions because they are true.  I don't have to make anything up; there's plenty of drama in real life.  Passengers on an airplane invariably settle into very natural positions that will be comfortable for the long haul - reading, sleeping, talking, writing - all very human activities and excellent subjects for drawings.  And each tell its own story.

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What did you draw today?

"What do you do all day?" is a question I used to find offensive.  As a single parent, full time restaurant/office worker, sculptor and homeowner of an unfinished house, I usually wanted to snap "WTF!  Here's what I didn't do today:  read, nap, play, daydream, watch a movie, take a walk, go to the beach.  What I did do:  cut grass, plant trees, weed, scrape paint, repair, rebuild, make clay, build armatures, prepare terracottas for firing, load kiln, do laundry, make lunch, wash dishes, clean kitchen and then go to work."  My sleep cycle was determined by how late I got home from work and how early the kids woke up:  5 hours was usual.

Waiting

Now I'm old.  The  kids I was running around after are all grown up.  I can go to sleep when I want to and wake up when I want to.  The house that still isn't finished is at least paid off.   The housework, yard work, all that - still the same amount of work and after thirty years of it, should look way better than this.  I'm still playing my private game of Beat the Clock against myself which I both always win and always lose.  But the question "what did you do today" is still just as inapplicable and meaningless.  A more sensible question for me would really be, "what did you draw today?" And that would explain it all.  Everything starts with a drawing.  If I'm in the planning stage of anything, it begins with a thumbnail sketch.  If its a halfway good idea at all, at least a post-it size diagram comes next.  Then the big paper comes out, the leads get sharpened and the big eraser is handy.  Or I may be already deep in drawings, getting ready to start the next big project.  On the other hand, if I didn't draw at all, and there's not a single drawing or drawing materials in sight, you'd know I've just had surgery or I'm dealing with some kind of catastrophe - basement flooded, stomach flu, the Holidays.

Ask not, for whom the bell tolls.  Ask, what did you draw today?

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