51 - But why sneaky?
Hello, new readers. There are many of you since my recent viral Twitter thread. Thank you for your appreciative comments and your interest in my work!
I find newsletters to be a great way to communicate. You are free to read all of it, or just a part. You are free to skim over the text and look at only the drawings. You can read it today, tomorrow, or any other time in the future. You can ignore it completely.
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But why sneaky?
SneakyArt is the practice of drawing beauty from everyday life, without disturbing it.
I make my art in public spaces, observing human activity and interaction. I don’t tell the subjects that I have drawn, and they never find out. Everything is very hush hush.
There are some good reasons to do it this way - some that I started with, some that emerged along the way.
When I started, the main reason was that I was ashamed of my drawings and did not want anyone to see them. I was embarrassed by the idea of drawing in public places. Today that feeling is gone, thanks to the global urban-sketching community. But I still enjoy being sneaky for other reasons.
Being sneaky in the pursuit of art challenges me to find new and interesting points of view even in busy urban spaces. Sometimes it affects where I sit, and sometimes it affects who/what I choose to draw. In every case, it affects my work positively by keeping the experience fresh, unpredictable, and challenging.
Over time, I have realized it is not just my sneakiness that constitutes SneakyArt. Sneaky is also a way to describe what I find worth drawing. It is there, right in front of me, yet hidden in plain sight. It has to be seen to be believed, but it also has to be believed to be seen. It is tricky.
It is art that emerges from the flux of everyday interactions - ordinary people, on ordinary days, in ordinary places. It is visible only to the careful observer. But once you start to see it, you find it everywhere.
Accidents happen
I am an artist by accident. It happened that one day someone wanted to buy a drawing I made. I had not planned for it. Many good things have happened in my life from chasing curiosity. I recommend it to everyone.
Words and Lines
If you’re new to my work, here are some links you might enjoy:
I analyzed a couple of Satyajit Ray films to break down key scenes in terms of visual storytelling. In Nayak, I find clever references between past, present, and future. In Enemy of the People, I see camera angles employed to convey power dynamics between characters.
I consider the work of a favorite artist, MC Escher, his efforts to represent mathematical concepts of infinity, and the beauty of his tesselations.
In March, I completed the #OneWeek100People project. These are the drawings I made, walking around Vancouver.
I wrote a little thing about how words are useless, based on the works of Derrida and what is known as deconstructionism.
This week…
… I drew multiple times from the same spot on Sunset Beach in downtown Vancouver. It is a short walk from the apartment, and a nice place to be in the evening. As case numbers fall and vaccination counts rise, a sense of normalcy is returning to Vancouver life. I am also easing myself into the idea of crowds in public places.
One day, I watched a group of mothers take care of toddlers under a warm sun. Motherhood, it appears, works more easily when responsibility is distributed. I share some thoughts in the Twitter thread below.
… As an artist, I often think about the horizon - what it reveals and what it conceals. I find my art in the foreground sometimes, and sometimes in the middle. I find it framed by distant things in the background. I talk about breaking up the scene on my blog. Read here and here.
… On a busy evening, I watched hundreds of people partake in summer activities. We made a small picnic on the soft grass, and watched the sun sink below the Pacific waters. There are a lot of young people at Sunset Beach at this time, and watching them go about their lives makes me think about mortality and immortality. It reminds me of a passage from one of my favorite books, Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. Read it here.
SneakyArt Podcast
Did you hear last week’s episode? In it I speak with Danny Gregory - artist, podcaster, and all-around creative person. Danny shares his diverse life experiences, and we talk about creative expression, as well as our thoughts around being an artist on social-media.
It was an enlightening conversation in which I asked many questions, and Danny had many wonderful answers. Click for Apple / Spotify, or find others link here.
Next week, I will have a new episode of the podcast, new drawings, and more ideas. Thank you for your time and attention.