My father has been drawing self portraits every day for ages. He just sent me a day’s output, drawn looking down into a mirror lying flat on the table.
In the accompanying note, he says:
“Doing things in pen is very nerve wracking as if you get one line wrong the whole thing is ruined. This makes you concentrate so you tend to get a picture that is more accurate than otherwise. I n each case I started with the left eye which is the only one I can see out of (the other has been blind all my life), I did the last two in the afternoon, I had to wear my glasses (as you can see in the pics) because after lunch I am unable to see without them, (except all blurry).”
It is sad that I didn’t know about my father’s blindness until this letter. He sends these sorts of little packages to me every year or so. They are more or less the only contact I have with him any more. My parents were divorced when I was about three so I don’t know a lot about him.
His drawings are so similar. He has really developed his ability to draw himself down to an almost mechanical science.
He is pretty unflinching in his scrutiny too.
I decided to try my hand at the same experiment. It is a very unflattering, through-the-nose-hairs sort of perspective on oneself. The last time I saw my father, about three years ago for a couple of hours in London, we were walking down the street and he said to me, “Is that your stomach?” As a result, I made my head very thin in this first drawing.
More accurate, less paranoid view of self.
Third go: scary, pig-snoutish.
I tried a version with my glasses and could barely see my reflection through them. The resulting drawing looks a lot like Ozzie Osbourne’s loutish son, Jack.
To learn just about any task, we start by breaking it into its smallest component parts. That’s how a computer works, breaking every operation into millions of unambiguous instructions which are then executed sequentially at the speed of light. Cooking a complex French dish becomes possible, even easy, if you have a clear recipe which breaks the preparation down into a long series of clear parts. Even playing a Beethoven symphony is technically a matter of reading the notes from overture to finale.
I think, therefore I am. And yet to truly be, I have to control, even stifle that part of me that thinks and thinks and thinks. It’s important, particularly when life gets overwhelming, to take time to just be in the moment.
I walk to work most days, covering the two and a half miles in thirty five minutes. I generally wind through Greenwich Village, then up through the meat packing district and along the river. I don’t encounter much traffic and the landscape is varied and interesting: 19th century brownstones and warehouses, taxi garages, car washes, art galleries, empty lots, some gentrified conversions. For a year or so, I wore my headphones en route and listened to music, books on tape or NPR podcasts. But recently I began leaving my iPod at home and slowed my pace down a bit. Now I spend my traveling time just listening to the morning. I find the time to think through ideas, to make connections, to be.
When I’m overly busy, my perspective gets so distorted. My loved ones become distractions. My pleasures become chores. I just want to get through things so I can work my way down the list.
Our turtle Mo-hammed is a low-maintenance creature. We feed him in the morning and clean out his tank once a week. Under the wrong circumstances, I ask myself (or worse, Patti and Jack) why do we have this creature in our kitchen in his heavy fetid tank of water, making more work for poor, burdened me. But when I come to my senses*, I take pleasure in feeding him dozens of little tablets of food one at a time or watching him walk around the kitchen counter, exploring. His striped skin is so beautiful. His shell like a horn of thumbprints, symmetrical and yet funky and organic. Pick him up when he wants to keep going on and he’ll emit a little hiss, like a cat or a radiator.
Walking with Joe through the park can be a perspective shift — if I let it. What’s it like to see the world from 12 inches, to note every previous dog’s markings, to yearn for every discarded chicken bone and bagel stub? I observe the politics of the dog run. A new dog enters and the pack’s pecking order needs to be re-calibrated. Every butt must be re-sniffed. Each dog must decide if he’ll submit or try to dominate the rest. The power struggles tend to be bloodless and quick. Dogs thrust their chests out or expose their genitals. Many encounter include a period of assessment, a brief standoff, during which each party stares and vibrates and finally chooses his place. Or, has it chosen for him. Studying and flowing with these basic interactions makes me feel at peace and in harmony. If only office politics were so clear and simple.
Drawing with my boy, cuddling with my wife, weeding my garden, folding laundry, staring out the window, sunbathing with my hound, flossing, drinking tea… the day is full of opportunities to stop and be. I never regret the time spent being thoughtless. I need to think of more ways to do it.
Like every twenty-first century critter, I am surrounded by exciting possibilities that latch onto the throat of my life and suck out my plasma. Every second is so jam-crammed with diversions: 500 channels, ten billion websites, a zillion blogs and podcasts and videocasts and magazines and art supply stores and people to chat with and email with and lunch with and … gak!
For a while now, I have been thinking about getting out of my journal and doing something a little more ambitious: a real painting. I tend to work very spontaneously and unpremeditated usually; maybe it was working on the HOW cover that prompted to try a piece that would take time and planning, something with some meaning beyond the quotidian that usually lies at the heart of my art-making.
Danny Gregory 