Courage

“Conference room. San Ramon, California”. 2013. Blood, sweat, ink and watercolor

What does it take to lead a truly creative life? What demons must you slay? What ancient voices growl from deep within your head, chanting familiar curses?

What can art do to show you the way? How do other artists embolden you and say, “It is possible. It really is.”? Do you think of Van Gogh in his shack, deciding to abandon the ministry to paint through his remaining days?

What is the price of golden handcuffs? How firmly does Money hold you by the tail, insisting it will never share your love and attention? Can art ever compete?

What do the people around you say? Do they encourage you to leap? Or pepper you with their own doubts?

Are you willing to be selfish? What’s the cost?

What are your fantasies about the way it could be? What does the best day look like? What about the scariest one? How does your grimmest fantasy compare with the worst trial you’ve ever actually endured— and overcome?

What does it take to root your life in passion, rather than necessity and obligation?

How many days do you have left on this earth? How many of them belong to you?

When, finally, will the time come?

Let’s draw together! C’mon!

So, listen, I have always thought it would be nice to get a group of people together and draw in a lovely place. You could call it a class, a workshop, a mildly dirty weekend ( if you are sloppy with your ink) , whatever you want, but it could be fun if I could ever get it together.

It seems I finally have.

Last fall I was contacted  by Arthur Samuelson, a  lovely man who is the director of the Rowe Camp and  Conference Center in the Berkshires in Massachusetts and asked if I might  want to come up and do a workshop there in late spring. It does seem like the perfect place to spend some time together drawing and so I have agreed to do it on the weekend of May 31- June 2.

It is an accesible place but also remote enough to be a proper get-away. And what I really like is how affordable it is, room and boardwise — they even are willing to price things according to need, so I hope you can manage it.

It will be a three day event, from Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon. We will get together on Friday evening, I will talk a bit and discuss a plan for the weekend. And I will show examples from my journal collection. Then you can thumb through em (and hopefully share some of your own). After a good breakfast on Saturday we will set out to draw in the woods, the lake, and the small town nearby. In the evening, we’ll sit around together and share journals and stories. Then on Sunday we’ll do some more drawing and writing and scatter home after lunch.

I will post a lot more about it very soon but just wanted to get the word out now so you can make plans a reserve a place (I think the number of attendees may be limited). This is my first time doing such a thing so if you have any suggestions, please let me know.

Here’s the link for details and registration.

Even if you have NEVER drawn before, please consider joining us. I will be fun and not at all traumatic, I promise! I really hope you can come.

Backblog

Now that my house is back to normal, I want to catch up on the all things I have been doing for the past month.

Shoot #1:  Three weeks ago, I traveled to Los Angeles to shoot some commercials for AIDS Day (December 1st). We filmed near Santa Clara in a fantastic location, an entire Mexican village that was built just to be used as a set. It has a half-dozen streets lined with bars and churches and various hovels, all uninhabited and weathered in the hot California sun. I’ve used it as a stand in for West Africa twice now.

The new sherriff in town.

The town doctor.

Filming in our traditional African village. Tortillas on the side.

My limo awaits.

Back in LA, we shot in an abandoned hospital which was still full of equipment and supplies. It was like something from “The Walking Dead,” and filled me with an eerie feeling that resurfaced during last week’s power outage in New York.

This emergency room needs an emergency room.

Spell check. Stat!

I napped in here.

This left me in stitches.

A good subject for a drawing.

The shoot went very smoothly (I’ll post a link to the commercials when they’re done) and then I flew back to New York and immediately went into production for another client, shooting around the city and environs. More on that in my next post…

EDM #20: Draw something “Dad” – in honor of Fathers Day

Well, obviously it’s not Father’s Day today but I happen to be working on a project that is Dad-related so I’ll focus on that.

A month or so ago, my friend Risa asked me to illustrate an essay she had written for a book on fatherhood that some people in New York are putting together. Risa’s essay is about a photo of her and her dad taken when she was a teenager, a time of stress and ambivalence. She asked me to draw from an old photo she cherished and, because I like Risa, I said I’d do it.

The reference picture.

She sent me a not terribly good color copy of the picture and the struggle began. I just could not figure out how to turn this picture into something good. It was contrasty, the features were in shadow, there’s not real detail when you look at it up close, the composition was indifferent and a corner of the picture had been scissored away. Whine, whine, moan, moan.

Strangest of all, Risa at 14 looked exactly like my mother at 16 — distractingly so.

My mum in 1955.

For the last months, every day or so, I have taken another run at it. Here are a few discarded examples:

Risa as mildly nauseated skeptic.

Risa as hag with liver condition.

Risa and dad done hastily in sumi.

Risa’s dad as Sicilian olive farmer.

Risa as drawn by Daniel Clowes.

Risa’s dad as drawn by Al Hirschfeld.

Risa as David Brenner.

I actually kind of like this. Sketchy, on tracing paper. One eye way too high.

And finally this morning, under the pressure of the EDM challenge, I finally made a drawing I like. The key was their hair, making it as ridiculous and bushy as possible so they are united despite their ambivalence in some sort of genetic connection that they cannot avoid. I drew it with a Faber-Castell PITT artist pen (XS) and a crow quill in India ink on bond paper. Does Risa look too much like a small Sharon Osbourne?

Anyway, I hope that Risa likes it. I’ll let you know if it gets in the book.

Finally, something I am liking.

A new video: timcam

An utterly ridiculous experiment in film making. The latest from sketchbook labs. vimeo.com/43860865