#15 - Roadtrip, Interrupted
Last week, I spoke about Ep 5 of the SneakyArt Podcast. This issue shares scenes from a road-trip interrupted by weather gods, and some things I learned this week.
Roadtripping
Last weekend, we decided to drive up to a cabin along the coast of Lake Michigan to see the fall colors. We haven’t gone anywhere since the pandemic, and since September it has felt like summer might very suddenly pass us by. Our apartment faces the sunset, and every evening I see the sun sink a little faster, a little earlier, and a little further south in the western sky.
Drawn on the highway, passing through Indiana and entering Michigan. Lettered later that evening.
We drove down and under Lake Michigan before driving up again along its eastern coast. Our first stop was the town of Holland MI, complete with its own windmill (below).
Once we were off the highways and driving along rural Michigan towns, we began to see a lot of political signage. Yard-signs are a very American oddity and, much like bumper stickers, the old-school social equivalent of a Facebook status. We saw many Trump/Pence yard-signs, and nearly as many Biden/Harris signs. Sometimes they were right next door to each other, leaving us wondering what effect this election was having on neighborly relations.
The next drawing (below the windmill) happened after we reached the White Birch Lodge in the town of Elk Rapids.
I decided to take a new accordion-style sketchbook for the trip!
Unfortunately, bad weather cut short our plans to see the Sleeping Bear Dunes and the surrounding fall landscape. Once it became clear that it was not going to stop raining, we took the decision to drive back to Chicago.
A couple of days of bad weather followed our return to Chicago. I worked indoors on some other projects but found time to draw some interesting visions out of the window.
(above) Can you see the impossible geometry? It struck me only at the end of my drawing, but the street and apartment form a Penrose Triangle. It’s a little bit of MC Escher on my mind!
(below) I had been meaning to draw these interesting structures at the Mary Bartelme Park for many weeks. Glad to have this opportunity before cold weather settles in!
Latest Commission
I just completed a commission for a Chicago-based client. It is a digital art painting of their family home in the Uptown neighborhood, and will be delivered as a 16x20” giclee print on fine art paper.
Kintsugi
TIL Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer comprising powdered gold.
My perception of Japanese culture was that it is obsessed with perfectionism. So the idea of kintsugi is very humanizing, like a zen approach to the rigid idea of complete mastery. Its historical origins, discussed in the video, are quite interesting too!
Kintsugi is also related to the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi, which would accept natural wear-n-tear over the passage of time as part of the history of an object. Such history would add to the object’s beauty or character.
I have reckoned with similar thoughts since becoming a sketchbook artist. Drawings inside a sketchbook are subject to the passage of time, but the work is also affected by so many things during the time of creation that are outside of my control. The wind, crowds, cold weather - these are factors which make the drawings less perfect but more authentic to their time and location.
Below is the last page of my other self-published book, SneakyArt of 2019. Without realizing it, I closed the book with an appeal to wabi-sabi.
In the latest episode of my podcast, artist Don Colley talks about pentimento, the discovery of discarded under-drawings in the canvas of famous paintings using X-rays and other imaging techniques. We were discussing the value of the sketchbook as a way to go “behind the scenes” and peer into the mind of an artist. In the same way, pentimento is a way to better understand the work of artists long gone. Listen to our conversation for deeper thoughts on the value of sketchbook art.
The Tiffany Problem
How old is the name Tiffany? This week I learned about the Tiffany Problem. The name Tiffany dates to the 12th century(!) yet sounds like it belongs to the last 50 years. It holds such a strong association to modern times that any historical fiction or non-fiction using the name would sound, ironically, anachronistic. This is known as the Tiffany Problem, and it manifests in interesting ways in works of historical fiction and non-fiction.
Can you think of any other names that have ancient origins but sound very modern?
Links
Issue #14 - Revealing Character with Don Colley
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