PROOF OF GOD! ...and other tragedies.

July 28, 2009

Unseasonably cool – sun and then thunder. A weather report is a fine place to start. Consciously deciding to create one sincere drawing/painting per day creates a peculiar pressure. I anticipated as much, but throughout the day I had to remind myself what I have started. I’ve not informed anyone of this project yet. So, I can always yank this blog out of it’s sphere if I find I am unable to draw.
Actually, I did tell my kids. Olive said, “I know.” (She does?) Leo said, “Why?” A fine question. How could I explain to a six-year-old that grownups sometimes have to force themselves to do things that they enjoy? It really makes so little sense. Why not just draw? Well, that’s part of the purpose of this project – to investigate why it is personally so difficult for me to experience drawing freely again.

Yes, drawing a picture a day is akin to the dying marriage’s date night. And while scheduled passion always left me cold, cold,

cold – somehow, I suspect that these drawings may give meaning to the aforementioned ellipses. (?) If nothing else, a drawing a day is proof that I was here, and that – for some reason – I was thinking about dress-makers dummies and seaside walls.
I started to draw Scylla. Greek goddess, 1/2 fish 1/2 woman – her waist ringed by snarling dogs. I was at work, facilitating a robotics workshop. I didn’t feel like drawing a robot.

The families were busy. I opened the encyclopedia and there was her description. I drew a woman based on the information that New World offered. But she looked like a mermaid with a belt made of sad-eyed hounds. Her arm was outstretched, perhaps it should be beckoning sailors – I found that I drew her idly dropping a drumstick to a doleful dog whose ears rested upon her pelvis. And she seemed lovely, but laughably human.

I started this drawing a couple of hours later. The wire-frame mannequin seems to be a ghost of sorts. The bird is seagull turned hummingbird. And none of it means a thing. But, I like it anyway.

Good Night. Tomorrow.

(Day 2 is 4″x7″ on recycled cardstock, pencil, acrylic, sepia-tone charcoal. I drew it in a parking lot, started painting it in the parent’s viewing area of a gymnastics school, and “finished” it on the couch while the kids watched Berenstain Bears.) (I had fun.)