“Sketch Book”
Various media on paper
18” x 12”
2009
My sketch books often contain drawings that are like a running journal of my unresolved thoughts and feelings. But sometimes they are more practical or utilitarian. In this case, it contains drawings that were made during live modeling sessions held in the dining room of a Bistro I owned between 2008 and 2011. Every Monday night we were closed for regular business and instead I made T bone steaks with a baked potato and frozen peas for $10. And you could either watch or join in sketching the live models posing nude in the middle of the room.
Monday nights became so popular we were selling over 100 steaks on a given Monday. And we had to set up a second seating area in the theater where people could watch aerialists rehearse.
We didn’t have a proper ventilation system so the whole place would fill with the smell of pan seared steaks. The models were suffused in the smokey air of high Renaissance Sfumato.
Somehow, after making steaks for over a hundred people I would still find energy to sketch. But simply sketching the live nude was not enough of a challenge for me. I decided to use ink and a brush where there is no room for mistakes or adjustments. Each placed line must be accurate and have its own intrinsic qualities of line which I call “chi”. “Chi” roughly means “ energy in motion” in Mandarin and is often meant to infer life energy or simply “alive.”
The first few drawings of the male torso are conventional idealized male figures. But the subsequent pages are clearly from the live models. I even recognize some of their individualized bodies. Some are little wonders of draftsmanship and some are just simply flops.
Towards the end there are 2 drawings that became studies for a sculpture I have been wanting to create ever since. It’s a man and a woman embracing with a complex expression of interdependency expressed through their bodies and the way they lean into each other to both at one and the same time support each other but also depend on each other to stay upright. It’s subtle but important. It is a tricky balance just like a real relationship. These little sketches have somehow captured that. Someday I hope to capture these complex set of emotions in a life size sculpture.
