On The Count Of Three

I think I may not be that bad of a drawer. I'll be realistic in saying that I'm not a great one, or probably even a very good one. I have terrible spatial reasoning. If you asked me to write a line of text across the middle of a page so that it occupied the exact center, I would struggle at that and I would probably fail. There are also probably not very many real world objects and shapes that I am adept at capturing with accuracy.

Still, I think that I surprise myself. When I aim for a very modest drawing goal, I come very close to hitting the mark. When drawing a face, I am really not so terrible. There is a great chance that, if I draw someone who you should know, you will figure out who it is without any help. I have managed to do this at least a couple of times, and given a lot of practice, I could do it at least a couple more times.

A Night At The Theatre

I saw a production of Shakespeare in the park yesterday evening. Specifically, it was at Griffith Park here in Los Angeles. A good friend tipped me off to it, and I was not about to pass up some culture outdoors for free. I tore myself away from some terribly compelling stuff going on around my computer and got on the train to my friend's place, from which we would head off to the park after fortifying ourselves with snacks.

The play was well attended, and the whole affair was run in a smooth, professional fashion. I feared that people might not be especially well behaved, particularly if they had been as successful in transgressing the policy against liquor as we had, but I found that everyone was about as eager to see the play without interruption as we were. The night went unmarred, and we were able to have ourselves a fine time.

I Know What I Like

A number of my friends enjoy going to art galleries from time to time. I can take or leave it, but tend to take it because I enjoy spending time with my friends. I can leave it because the art on display seldom does much for me. I don't know that there's much to be said except that. I think a lot of the art is not very good, and trades more than anything on provocation. A lot of it derives from existing pop culture creations, which I don't care for much.

I should say that some of that latter material is very good, and that I don't know why a gifted artist would let their creation speak for some blockbuster movie instead of for them. That's a side issue, though. The point is that I can get very bored at some of these galleries, or I could if it weren't for the people.  Thank goodness for the people, because I tend to not get myself entangled in the wine and liquor that is such a hazard in a crowded gallery of well-appointed, fashionable types.

Model Student

I had a rather interesting experience last night. Some friends were having a game night a long way from my place, and some other friends were planning on going downtown to the Art Walk. For a night every month, downtown is heavily populated by the city's coolest and hippest (or so they appear to my eyes). As downtown is considerably easier to get to, I opted for the latter plan. It proved to be a pretty good time altogether.

The main thing that stood out came midway through the evening. One artist, ensconced in an industrial space with about nothing in it, was doing "live art". That is to say that he was doing chalk (or perhaps charcoal) drawings before an audience. We watched for a while as he rendered a rather pretty blonde woman into a somewhat haunted-looking likeness on the paper. It was rather interesting to watch it play out.

Art Of Which I'm Not Part

I have been going to some art galleries lately. This is not entirely a new experience, as I have been a few times in the past, but it is presently fresh in my mind. For that I must credit certain friends who tend somewhat more towards the legitimate visual arts than I would myself. I can't say what the experience is like in other cities or in other levels of the art world, so I won't contrast but I will say what my experience has been.

For some reason, artists that I have seen are greatly enamored with the work of others, and so much of what I see is a tribute in some fashion to a movie or a tv show. This is not invalid I suppose, but neither would I regard it as entirely productive. What I create I hope serves me (and of course humanity). I wouldn't think to serve someone else whose work is already well-loved and lucrative. They can handle things. I still have yet to make it, so my labors continue to be self-serving.

Laureate City

I have long been of the opinion that any place worth anything has to its name no less than one hero who tells its story via some artistic medium. To fail at that speaks loudly of an utter lack of any love or passion for the place, and then you are left with just a place and not a community- at least not one worth association or affiliation with. It hardly needs to be a community on top of the world to have this- some pretty hard-up places can boast of a laureate preaching the word in some fashion.

I'm reminded of John Waters and Barry Levinson, both filmmakers of Baltimore. There's John Sayles of Texas, Bruce Springsteen and Kevin Smith of New Jersey, Woody Allen and Spike Lee of New York, Elmore Leonard and Eminem, both of Detroit. There's Drew Carey of Cleveland, Tina Turner and Mark Twain of Missouri, and so many more I don't know, can't recall or don't dedicate space to here. The point is that when a place has qualities which move an artist to practice his craft in devotion to it, you know it's a place worth investing in, body and soul.