Dad Zaida LaRose
Marker on paper
What can I say?
I could tell you in great detail the set and setting or, fuckin' check it out!
I gotta say something.
I can't help it, so I might ruin it:
Sitting in a long haired bean-bag chair, I was reading to Zaida. I started to read a book and after a page or two she plopped down next to me and started to draw. I wasn't allowed to move (but I was supposed to keep reading (she is appreciating drawing while listening to sounds)(while I'm thinking that life drawing models have an under paid job). Zaida got confused with the legs and asked for help. Actually she said "oh. . . shoot. . .I messed up, oh well, its just a drawing". That's when I knew that things were going to be OK. "Oh well" she said.
Uh-Oasis.
Working without fear of mistakes.
That's huge!
When I became conscious that Zaida was drawing me, I couldn't read anymore. I tried to hold my pose and look at what she was doing. Watching her draw I could see that everything had a meaning, except for fields of color. The "Penquins Rock" t-shirt I was wearing seems to spill from the book I was reading (posing). She laughed at my "macaw" hair. We laughed even harder when I discovered that she meant "mohawk" (old man style). I found myself saying: "Draw what you see, not what you know" with conviction, as if it was some gentle and obvious truth. While my almost six year old struggled over these words, I found myself marveling at her control of symbols. She is not even six and she is fighting symbols!
Her brow was furrowed.
I never realized until tonight that there was a difference between a furrowed brow of frustration and a furrowed brow of engagement. She was engaged with and even had a Jordanesque tongue happening.
I've been using the image above as the portrait that follows my name in the blogosphere. I think that I might change it to Zaida's drawing.
I was looking for some subtle change. In my previous post I expressed a cup less then full.
Marker on paper
What can I say?
I could tell you in great detail the set and setting or, fuckin' check it out!
I gotta say something.
I can't help it, so I might ruin it:
Sitting in a long haired bean-bag chair, I was reading to Zaida. I started to read a book and after a page or two she plopped down next to me and started to draw. I wasn't allowed to move (but I was supposed to keep reading (she is appreciating drawing while listening to sounds)(while I'm thinking that life drawing models have an under paid job). Zaida got confused with the legs and asked for help. Actually she said "oh. . . shoot. . .I messed up, oh well, its just a drawing". That's when I knew that things were going to be OK. "Oh well" she said.
Uh-Oasis.
Working without fear of mistakes.
That's huge!
When I became conscious that Zaida was drawing me, I couldn't read anymore. I tried to hold my pose and look at what she was doing. Watching her draw I could see that everything had a meaning, except for fields of color. The "Penquins Rock" t-shirt I was wearing seems to spill from the book I was reading (posing). She laughed at my "macaw" hair. We laughed even harder when I discovered that she meant "mohawk" (old man style). I found myself saying: "Draw what you see, not what you know" with conviction, as if it was some gentle and obvious truth. While my almost six year old struggled over these words, I found myself marveling at her control of symbols. She is not even six and she is fighting symbols!
Her brow was furrowed.
I never realized until tonight that there was a difference between a furrowed brow of frustration and a furrowed brow of engagement. She was engaged with and even had a Jordanesque tongue happening.
I've been using the image above as the portrait that follows my name in the blogosphere. I think that I might change it to Zaida's drawing.I was looking for some subtle change. In my previous post I expressed a cup less then full.
And then I made this drawing:
I'm going to draw a version of this that will be as wide as I am tall.
It will be a portait.
It will be a portait.
I understand how you feel, I have been blogged out myself (reading very few) - artwork needs to be fed with lots more stuff than just other art. I am interested in personal insights into an artists life that the blog can offer, but even then, small doses. Good luck.
I wanted to add, artists blogs are interesting to me because I feel like they are more for the author than for any audience. Of course this means they won't always be as "good" as most other reading or entertainment, but they are different animal altogether.
Thanks for pointing out Harolds blog, looks like a great start!
Steven - I'll work harder for you! :)
Keep the faith - highs and lows as we all know. I'll check out Harold.
True confessions coming soon to HLIB.
seriously, I'm interested in some points ChrisJag mentions.
more later...
I was at Chris's blog-via Dennis Hollingsworth's blog, I'll tell you what, it gave me new found energy in the studio, like I was on a journey with a peer. Chris, I'm watching, Dennis gave you props, so I'm in, Steve, well, I have some painting here in my home of yours, what a small and infecting world, I really have the itch, hope I don't let you all down!
by the way, the music that you shared on your blog is still resonating with me Steve!
by the way, nice of you to give me props, nex time I roll to San Francisco, shall we get together on my way down?
Oh yeah! (541-951-0955)
I've been through phases like yours before, Steve. Not just in terms of art on the Internet, but on the Internet in general. I'm thinking back to the days when content first started appearing in large amounts, early 1994. We'd started up our own Web server and were throwing out a lot of random stuff. And one day I was reading, surfing -- this was before text searching -- and I realized I was skimming things, barely looking at them, and moving on, restless.
I tried to figure out, was it me? Was I just tired of the Web? Was the Web over and done with? Keep in mind, I'd watched FTP become uninteresting, I'd watched Gopher barely emerge before being overtaken by the WWW. So it was possible the Web was dying, too.
This went on for several days, maybe a couple of weeks, even. Then one day I stumbled on this site -- Mark Jason Dominus' Universe of Discourse. And I spent the next three or four days reading the entire thing obsessively.
I then realized that the problem wasn't that the Web was dying, or that I had grown bored, or any of that. I just hadn't found the good stuff and was still mired in the old, tired, and cruddy. As soon as I found something really good, I remembered what it was all about.
I've been through many more phases like that, where I just feel tapped out on the Web. Whatever topic is interesting me at the time, whatever cliques I'm circling, there come times when things cool off for a bit.
They pick back up again eventually.
As far as Chris Ashley's suggestion that the Internet should be more than an extension of print-based publishing, I say, good luck. I've been around this here Internet block a few times and have yet to see anything I'd really call worthy of the Internet as a medium as opposed to a distribution channel. The closest I can recall is actually from pretty early in the Web's history:
The Urban Diary from 1995. That was kind of neat.