A man sat at the next table--in his seventies, surel,y with a pinky ring that looked like it was out of a Cracker Jack box. A slender gold band with a giant red stone.
He sipped coffee and took bites of pumpkin bread--opting to use a fork, when I'd have just used my fingers.
He slipped a pair of glass on his nose.
"I want to draw him," I thought, imagining the satisfaction of capturing the bags under his eyes, the broom of stubble on his chin.
At the table next to him, six senior citizens--the women clustered at one end, the men at the other hovered over the newspaper.
These were interesting faces. Faces I wouldn't think twice about before taking a drawing class, I'd favored the smooth faced beauties in fashion magazines. Pretty. Fresh. But young faces have nothing to dig into, nothing to capture with the lights and darks of charcoal and eraser.
Art is the antidote to our beauty- and, youth-obsessed culture. All those anorexic, self-loathing girls and boys out there should just take a drawing class. Learn to see to creased and flappy bodies and faces, lined and stretched, dented and bent in a different way. Captivating.
1 comment:
I love things which make us see differently. (And of course, sometime, I despise things which make me see differently.)
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