Disregard my last letter. Strings became undone. A little sawdust spilled out. Beer. Wine. German gloom. These things can fetch anyone. A waterglass looks like a skull. Horses run into the rail. Insomnia. Job trouble. Toothache. The body bleeds. Retching. Flat tire. Traffic ticket. Lack of love. Sleep, then nightmare. Paper everywhere. Trivial bits of paper. Nothing ever done. Flooded sink. People in the hall with cardboard faces. Sure, sure, sure.
Today I will walk in the sun. I will simply walk in the sun."
Charles Bukowski, September 4, 1962
Working evenings I saw Joseph for only a couple of hours in the afternoons. My desk was next to his, so we would sometimes talk.
I had a detailed map of Paris hanging in my cubicle. I was planning a trip there in the summer of 1994, and by gazing at the streets and the city districts everyday I slowly became aware of the places I wanted to visit – Montmartre, Ile St-Louis, Montparnasse, wandering the Seine.
My hope was to wander the city from dawn to dusk for 8 days, camera in hand. My idea of a good time would be to observe how the sunlight interacted with the streets, people, and buildings.
Joseph noticed my map and told me he had been to Paris, and all over Europe.
"Kiki and I visited Matisse's studio in the south of France. One of our best days was when we took a day trip to the countryside. We took a picnic lunch and sprawled ourselves on a hilltop overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. The beauty overtook us, and we decided to try our best to be great painters."
Henry Matisse
He gave me some tips about Paris, the most memorable one being not to wear shorts in the city, because it would flag me as a tourist.
Whenever the shipping department would get a new pallet of binders, the boxes would be filled with thick, glossy paper inserts. The company had no need for these inserts, so Joseph would use them for his daily drawings. Whenever I looked over at Joseph's desk, he was either doing soda inventory in Excel, or making a drawing.
His style of drawing was unique, the paper being filled with thick black lines of smooth, flourishing, circular abstractions. He seemed sure handed and confident of what he was doing.
Morningstar in the mid 90's provided a class reimbursement to its employees. The classes did not have to be work related, so I decided to take a drawing class at Truman College in Uptown, which was about 1 mile from the Parc Paris, on Wilson Ave. The neighborhood was rough and dangerous, and I never felt safe during the 1 block walk from the elevated station to the college.
Unlike Joseph, I knew nothing about drawing, but I thought practicing it would give me a better eye for photography.
So once a week I would ride the train to the college on a Saturday afternoon, carrying a large drawing tablet under my right arm, my backpack filled with charcoal, pencils, and erasers.
I had been reading van Gogh's letters for a few years by this time, and I remembered how he believed drawing the figure would lead to success in everything else. So I decided to take a life drawing class.
The first day of class, when I gazed at an unclothed model for the first time, I had no idea where to start. I was overwhelmed, because the more closely I looked the more the little details became apparent. To make matters worse the initial poses were held between 30-60 seconds. I glanced at a few students and their hands were moving freely over the paper, translating lines into images.
Feeling I could spend an hour on a hand, or the intricate lines and shadows of the torso, I could not comprehend what to draw in 60 seconds. It seemed absurd, so I just sat gazing at the model.
I finally made an attempt, making 2 heavy parallel lines which I hoped would look like a thigh and calf. I chose the legs because they seemed not as difficult as the upper body. I did not even want to think about the face and head.
After the initial period of quick drawings, I was relieved to settle into a 15 minute pose.
The model was a woman in her 30's, normal body type, dark hair, attractive face. I studied her pose for a minute or two, wondering what I should concentrate on. There was no way I could cover the whole body, so I decided to work on the shoulders, breasts, and legs.
I found myself falling into a trance as I began comparing the relation of shapes and lines to the overall mass, trying to make sense of how to transfer the beauty I saw onto paper.
The lines I threw on the paper were dark, heavy, yet unlike my handwriting, the lines seemed to contain a rough power which revealed how I felt about the subject. Before I knew it the 15 minutes had come to an end, and we went on a short break.
I sat on my stool and gazed at what I had made. "God, that's awful", I thought. "I'm like a 5 year old learning to write his name."
I noticed the teacher walking around the room, looking over some of the student's drawings. I watched her, studying her facial expressions as she explained to the students how to improve their drawings. I did not want her looking at my drawing, but at the same time didn’t care, I was doing this as a way to help me see, and I already knew that I couldn’t draw a stick figure properly, let alone an artistic representation of a female body.
By this time the model had slipped on a robe and I was startled and embarrassed to see that she was walking straight towards me. Of all the students in the room, she had decided to see what I had made of her. I could feel my cheeks flushing with color, I was a fraud, I knew it, and was sorry that she had to see how I had mangled her.
I wondered if I had stared too intently at her during the pose, but how else was I to translate the beautiful details if I didn’t look at her? I did feel as if I had violated her privacy, I knew her body so well from those 15 minutes, in a way it felt wrong. Only someone very close to her should ever have that kind of knowledge. Maybe she was going to tell me not to stare at her so strongly?
She stopped at my easel and hesitated, then moved beside me to see what I had done. A look of disbelief washed across her face. She looked me in the eyes, then turned back to the drawing. I was still blushing.
The teacher had seen the model come over to me, and now she too was walking towards my easel. I looked down, I couldn’t believe this was happening. A student sitting nearby noticed what was going on and stepped towards my drawing. I tried to keep my perspective, and when the teacher arrived I had managed to get the blush out of my cheeks.
She studied the drawing, the model and student also looking. 3 people were staring at a bunch of heavy lines that resembled an abstract sumi painting, my first nude study.
"Oh, look at this", the teacher said in a praising voice. "These lines are drawn with vigor and so much freedom…" Her hand moved close to the charcoal fragments and traced the outline of the shoulders. "Very unique. Well done," she told me.
The student standing next to her nodded his head in agreement. The model seemed skeptical, and returned to the posing platform.
I walked over to the student's drawing and saw a skillful replica of the entire pose, including the face and head. He was good.
I walked back to my drawing and saw a mess of tangled lines. I was awful.
I did not know what to make of the teacher's comments, why I had attracted the model's attention, and why the master drawing student had nodded his head in agreement with the teacher's assessment of my work.
I didn't have time to think about it further, because we were now into the 30 minute pose.
To be continued....
~ ~ ~
Worked on this photograph today :
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