Saturday, January 21, 2012.
Got another drawing for you:)
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Saturday, December 17, 2011
"Sidekick"
December 17, 2011.
Under the influence of such Sixties and Seventies jazz greats as Grant Green, Ramsey Lewis, and Donald Byrd, I continued sketching this vision of Adam's partner-in-crime, if you understand the pun behind the title of this drawing.
Friday, December 9, 2011
"So Amazing"
Friday, December 9, 2011.
Following this drawing is an illustrated journal entry explaining my passion for the incredible dancers of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater:
"Parisian Thoroughfare"
Paris, France,
February 27, 2010, age 41
Aboard a Gray Line Paris Blue bus touring the city
Late that Saturday afternoon
From my Paris Grey notebook, February 2010
Ten forty-five in the AM. VICK came! “He” finally arrived to sweep us off our feet. Or at least showed up to give each and every passenger a lift to Pont l’Alma—-to the Musee d’Orsay (a young female acquaintance’s destination)—-to the Invalides (once an infirmary for the wounded among the French army soldiers)—-to the Champ du Mars-Tour Eiffel—-and out the tunnel, cutting across the city in the open air (“en plein air”) for us to marvel at the villages, skyscrapers, expressways, highways, forests…and the ghost of Jean-Michel Basquiat working his magic, mischief, and mayhem on the walls, bridges, rooftops, trains, and buses with his spray cans and paint brushes, thereby adorning, decorating, and redefining the RER-C Yellow line. And trust me, Basquiat, once one of Andy Warhol’s proteges before he met his untimely end in 1988, certainly had my undivided attention. Now really, how could I have avoided his overwhelming influence when it was staring me right in my face—-being in my face—-making me do an about face, turning my back to what others normally regard as art, “true” art. Beautiful, tasteful…safe? It was a smooth and relaxing ride on the train under the serene and idyllic and over the grimy and gritty, but it had to end for me on Virafloy, on the Rive Gauche, the stop I thought would direct me to the grand Chateau in Versailles. Well, I stepped out into the brisk, blustery wind (a certainly cold snap), made a sortie out into the neighborhood, and ultimately found myself in the middle of a pharmacy, a grocery store, a church, a conservatory, and rows of small houses on a hill, all adjoining a network of narrow dead-end streets—-yes, dead-end streets—-seeing that neither one of them would lead me to the Chateau, but back to the Virafloy R.G. station! I was in a foreign environment within a foreign environment, a world apart from Paris. A world apart from Paris’ bohemian past steeped in the Latin Quarter, from a neighborhood I’ve already come to know and appreciate. Reluctant to ask a single soul in the village, fearing that my presence as the only Black man around (let alone American) would arouse both suspicion and wariness, I walked back to the station with my carnet of tickets in my pocket, my five euros in one hand, and my black Kangol cap in the other. Of all the things I’ve experienced thus far in France, the incredibly cold and strong winds under the milky white skies were the only things that didn’t blow me away!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)