Well, this is one of the Red Pen Preservations. And the thing about these is, I like putting things in jars. And so at some point, I, um, started doing that, started putting drawings in jars, started putting other things in jars.

The origins of this piece kind of go back to this series of drawings I did, that were drawings on toilet paper, tubes. You know, the center part of a roll of toilet paper. And I discovered that those fit perfectly into these little Nescafe, instant coffee jars that I liked a lot. And so I did some of those, and they’re in boxes somewhere in a closet. And they were a bit challenging because drawing on the rounded surface of the toilet paper core was difficult. I don’t know. But I enjoyed doing them. And I’ve got some of them up on the website and a different gallery, I think, just some things I like in jars, you know – various things I put in jars because I do like putting things in jars.

This is a group of drawings I did with a red pen, and I like drawings with red pen. I’ll probably mention that at other times. Since I’ve already started talking about the toilet paper roles on this drawing that doesn’t have anything to do with toilet paper roles. I’ll save the red pen drawings for some other time. But these drawings were just drawn on regular paper. They were drawn specifically to go into the jars, I measured them, and made them so they would fit into the jars. Not exactly, not precisely, but well enough. and just did some drawings, put them in the jars, and I liked them. I liked the way the red pan goes with the red lid of the jar. I like the whole jar. I like the way that putting a two dimensional drawing into a jar makes it a three dimensional artwork, which I think is interesting.

I like the concept of preservation, you know, the idea that you can preserve this thing by putting it into a jar, which, of course, you know, is arguable, but the idea of making preserves is that you jar them. You know, if you’re, like, making strawberry preserves or apricot preserves or peach preserves, you know, you’re preserving it by putting it into the jar. So that’s kind of the idea. It touches on that idea of timeliness and ephemerality that I’ve enjoyed playing around with at times and continue to do.

And I guess that’s it. That’s all I’m going to say about this Red Pen Preservation drawing. This is number 14. I guess, layer 14, that’s probably number 14 from the group. Again, I really probably should have named these files a little bit more, um… tellingly.

Let’s see, this is just a drawing that I did a couple years ago or a few years ago, probably. From a group that I put together called Nudes and Études. Really it’s not an especially intentional group. It’s just a lot of drawings that are done on regular 8.5 by 11 paper. Usually in either ink or colored pencil – by ink, I mean anything from ballpoint pens to fountain pens to… anything at all. And it’s just a collection of drawings, really done mostly just as practice, you know. I feel it’s important to just draw on a regular basis. And to be honest, I think that what was happening was that I hadn’t posted anything to the website for a while, and I didn’t really have anything easy to document, and so I put these together.

Lately, the past few years, it seems like the easiest things to document are digital things, because, of course, you don’t need to scan them. So, I don’t scan a lot, and so these drawings just sort of pile up. So I think that when it came time to be feeling as if I had neglected the website for too long, I just scanned a bunch of these and put them up. And I, of course, came up with the clever little rhyming title, Nudes, and Études, which describes exactly what they are. They’re just nudes and studies.

A lot of times I will play around with different poses or play around with different methods or just sort of play around with drawing and seeing what I can do with the materials and, that’s it. So these are just a bunch of nudes and études. And this one’s a pretty nice little drawing. I’m happy with it. I like this group. I, to be honest, I haven’t really looked at it lately, but my recollection is that I was pleased enough with it to put it together and put it up on the website. That’s it.

It’s nice to see this drawing. This is one of the earliest things that’s on my website. It’s a drawing that I think I must have done in Barcelona. That’s about the only explanation for it. It could have been done later in London, but I’m pretty certain that this was done in Barcelona. I can kind of picture – really I can vividly picture – sitting at a metal table in a park in Barcelona drawing – and I’m almost sure that this is one of the things I drew that day. I remember that somehow we had a frisbee, and Jeff Lorien and I were throwing it for awhile, but we stopped because a couple of oblivious Spanish kids almost walked right into its path and came really close to getting bonked on the head – apparently they had never seen such a thing and had never developed the sense to avoid it’s curved trajectory.

This drawing is on a scrap of… I think good paper. I’m not sure. I’ll have to see if I can find it. I’m sure it’s around somewhere, again lost inside a box somewhere (or not? I’m really not sure, it’s been quite awhile since I’ve seen it). I think that it might be on some kind of heavier weight paper (Rives BFK?) it seems to have quite a tooth to it. I probably scanned it in 1999, but this drawing is from 1987. And like I said, I think it’s in Barcelona. On the left is Jane, and looking there at Jane, next to her, is Jeff Lorien, and then I’m standing there, looking out into the world, and Scott Herbstman is, on the other side, looking in the other direction. And, these were all lovely people that I spent time with when I was traveling in Europe, and it really brings back pleasant memories to think about them while I’m looking at this.

Here’s a drawing from the 2001 Loose Leaf Sketchbook. I had this sort of half size, three ring binder. It was leather, and I don’t know quite where I acquired it. I think that maybe, from Gotta Have it, that’s the most likely thing – that somebody brought it into Gotta Have it, and I liked it. So I got it, and put some paper in it, and punched the holes for the paper, and did these drawings.

Note for those who don’t know: Gotta Have it is a consignment vintage clothing store in Venice where I worked off and on for a lot of years in the 1990’s and early 2000’s.

I really liked working in that binder. The drawing itself is interesting. It shows me there, sort of running away, but looking back, and considering a previous relationship that I had had, and wrestling with whether or not I could see the beauty in that person. And of course, I could, but it took some effort in those days. This is, during the period of time when I would have been just beginning to work on the Saints series, and I think that it took me quite some time before I could really wrestle myself into making a saint image of her. But, of course, I eventually did.

As I’m running away, though, I’m depicting myself as sort of a saint, but about ready to hand off the halo to her, it’s an interesting drawing.

I notice that the shoes that I’m wearing in this drawing are this pair of gray leather, Mary Janes, that I also would have gotten from Gotta Have it. They were a large women’s size that fit me well enough. I wear about a nine and a half mens’ and I think that these were probably 11s or 11 and a half women’s. They fit so comfortably, and I wore them for the longest time, and I loved them. They were just feminine enough to sort of make a statement, which is the kind of thing that I would have enjoyed back then – back in the day, you know. The strap eventually broke on them, and so I stopped wearing them. If I’d had any sense, I would have taken them to a cobbler and gotten them fixed, but I didn’t have the sense or the money to do that back then.

So, that’s what this drawing is, and I kind of like it. It’s a good little drawing. I’m not sure where that sketchbook is, as with most of these things, but I’m sure it’s in a box somewhere, and I should unearth it and look through these drawings.

Update: I was right, I found the box – it wasn’t hard, it was right where I thought it would be – in a stack of boxes on a shelf in a closet. The box was clearly marked “sketchbooks” in sharpie along the side. A wealth of old sketchbooks was in it, among them was this one. I didn’t bother going through it, but someday I will. I pulled out some really old sketchbooks from the early 90’s (never scanned, and possibly never will be – we’ll see). I didn’t go through them today either, but I will.

This is a drawing that I would have done at a parent-teacher conference in, gee, doesn’t have a date on it. I think maybe 2015, 16, 18. I’m not sure. I’m sure that it’s on the website. It will tell me. (I checked the website – it says 2018). The filename says day one, that’s day one of two – there were plenty of drawings, so I split them up. I have a lot of these from other years as well, I’ve just never gotten around to scanning them and adding them to the website – enough is enough, I think – although there are some real gems in the stack!

I remember when I made this series, we used to have big group teacher conferences where the whole staff, or at least the part of the staff, that might be teaching any particular student, would all sort of sit around table, and the parents would come in, and four or five of us, anyway (sometimes 8 or 9), would take turns talking about what we had observed with the student and how the student was doing that sort of thing. And they were long days of just doing this. And I found out, somewhere early on, that it was a much more tolerable experience if I had some paper and something to draw with, and could bide my time, with drawing (not “withdrawing” which is what the voice-memo transcript thought I’d said). I’ve always found that drawing, while in the midst of a meeting, makes the meeting much more tolerable, and I never have any trouble staying focused on whatever is going around in the conversation, if I am drawing. And really, I kind of enjoy it, because it allows for a little bit of an automaticness to the drawing – where I’m not paying too close of attention to it, so I can allow myself the freedom to draw without a lot of decision making. So it makes for a much more free drawing, and some good things come out of it, I think.

So that’s what this is. This is a drawing from that. It’s a pretty nice little drawing. I like it.

Okay, so this is from a leather sketchbook that I drew and wrote in in 2003. The title says that it’s page 40 or it says number 40, and I assume that means the page. I’d have to go and check, or the spread, I guess, because it’s two pages. So maybe it’s the 40th spread which would make it pages 79-80? I’m not sure.

On the left is a nude with a fish and a little, note that says, come in slowly to my life and choose to share with me what disappointments do you feel – No question mark, and I think that what my intention there was, share with me what disappointments you feel. I’m not certain, um, I was, it was a long time ago.

The right hand side has a sort of poem. It tells us:

It only takes
one glass of wine
to make me feel like being
honest with you.
Two can make me feel sad,
like feeling sad
when what I had is gone
and irretrievable.
Three glasses of wine can
make me miss the girls
I haven’t slept with,
but tonight, I’ve only had
two,
and I feel sad, alone
and without you.
I should have been
more decisive and sure.

That last line probably is exactly right, because when I look at this, I assume, I think I know who it was that I was thinking about when I drew this and wrote this. But I’m not 100% sure it could have been one of two different people, and that speaks to the indecisiveness and the lack of surety that I had back in those days, at least when it came to love.

So, it’s a sweet little thought and recollection in a nice sketchbook. I’ll have to dig it out. If I look at it and find the context, I’ll be able to know more about it.

These drawings, this sketchbook, a lot of these things were thoughts and images that led to the 14 questions for Eve series that I think I completed a couple years later in 2005, but I was working on these all along while I was living on Altair, in Venice between 2002 and early 2006.

Later thoughts: Given the time period – 2003 – and the drawing itself, I realize more clearly who must’ve been on my mind the night I wrote this, and it makes sense – indecision was definitely at play in those days. Lovely memories though – even if they were sometimes the result of painful evenings.

Okay, so this one is from the 2nd Tidal Wave Sketchbook, and I was puzzled by the numbering system, but I think I’ve got it deciphered. I looked on the website, and I think I figured out that this one is… the 68th page. And so when this says pages 31 through 40, in the filename – Tidal Wave Sketchbook pp31-40. It seems to be referring to spreads, I think what I did when I scanned these was to scan them and then compile the scans in photoshop, then export them as layers. I would have done them in order, but when I exported them the layer numbers end up making it a bit confusing. They are not in the correct order on the website. I should try to correct that one of these days, although it’s pretty low priority.

Anyway, this seems to be page 68 from that sketchbook. It’s a depiction of me, running in what I presume is fear, from the tidal wave. That’s the idea presumably – I’d have to dig the sketchbook out and see if there’s a tsunami depicted on the facing page, although even if there isn’t, that pretty much has to be the intent – I can remember that much, even if it was 30 years ago.

And, uh, it’s colored pencil on that same paper that all of the Tidal Wave Sketchbooks have. I don’t really remember the source of that paper. It was something other than bond. It was like a stationery kind of paper that I used for these sketchbooks – it had sort of a grid-like tooth, and was quite thin. I can see that it was drawn on January 23, 1996. The most convenient thing that I did with these was writing dates down at the bottom of most of them. I assume that it was probably drawn at the Hot – the HOT 2, Hielan called it, in Venice, over breakfast back then – that’s where most of these were drawn – 30 years ago. And that’s all I’ll say about this right now.

This is a drawing from what must have been late summer or early fall 1994. This is after I got back from Denver, and it’s the first group of drawings that I was doing with colored pencil. I don’t know how I had never encountered colored pencil. I don’t think that colored pencils were a brand new thing in 1994, but I can remember buying some… in Denver, after I had finished the paintings I had done there, but before I had left. I think I bought them at a Staples store, and I loved them. They were great, and I bought these, along with a battery powered electric pencil sharpener that would fit in the little satchel-like bag that I would carry my sketchbook and newly bought colored pencils in.

At some point, I think on my way to Denver, I had stopped off in Salt Lake City to visit my grandmother, and she had given me, for some reason, I don’t know why (maybe I asked for it? maybe she was about to throw it away? I don’t remember), some corduroy material. And I’d used that to wrap around some cardboard, which I then used as the cover for this slightly oversized sketchbook. I don’t know what size exactly… I think that maybe it’s about 15 by 10 inches or so, I’d have to dig it out and find it to know for certain. It’s in a box somewhere – I hope. But that’s what this sketchbook is

Anyway, It was late summer or probably autumn – a time when one’s thoughts turn to pumpkins. I think that was where I was going with this, and I think that just, somehow, the topic of pumpkin eater occurred to me. I don’t really know the history or origin of that little rhyme (I suppose Mother Goose), but let’s see, 1994, um, Yeah, I think that I was between girlfriends, and that might have suggested the pumpkin-eater’s plight to me. I assume that was the self-deprecating nature of the joke here. I can’t remember for sure, but I do know that wife-keeping has never been my strong suit.

But, this is a pretty nice little drawing, I think. Later on, a lot of the 1995 paintings came from drawings in this sketchbook. So these drawings ended up serving as studies for the paintings that I did the following year.

Here’s the 1995 painting that came from this sketch. It’s not a great photo of it but it’s what I’ve got. I’m not really sure what became of these canvases. I haven’t seen them for quite awhile – maybe I painted over them – I’ve gotten very confused about what I painted over and what I just misplaced. I remember that this would have been on a 48×36 inch unstretched canvas, most of this group that size, although their were also some smaller pieces as well. These were oils – this was the last group of oils I did, the following year I started working with acrylics. I think I’ll probably return to oil eventually – once I move to a more ventilated spot.

This is a drawing – or a couple of drawings, I guess – from a sketchbook that my friend Dom gave me. It says 2014, which must be accurate, but I’m sure that she gave me this sketchbook some years earlier than that. I’m not quite sure when. So I probably had it around for a little while, and then got around to drawing in it. I can remember drawing in it, in Venice, before I moved downtown (LA). That was in 2013 when I moved down here (I’m still living in downtown LA) so, I would imagine that maybe I began drawing in this sketchbook in 2012 or 2013. And then, it just took me a little while to complete it. It doesn’t have a lot of pages, but I have the feeling I began drawing in it – then inadvertently set it aside (maybe when I moved?) – and then at some point (2014?) I picked it up again, and probably finished it quickly. That sounds right.

This is the first sketchbook where I was intentionally trying to avoid any suggestion of recognizable imagery. So it was kind of a game that I was playing, visually, to see what I could draw that would not suggest an image. And, of course, human beings recognize patterns, and so we’ll see a pattern whenever we look – we’ll see an image in almost anything. And so it was a tricky game to play, because as soon as I would see a pattern, I would have to stop or divert it or try to avoid creating something that would stand in the way of the ambiguity I was attempting to achieve, I guess. So I think these two pages were fairly successful. It was an interesting project, and I think that the drawings in here were a good experience, a good learning experience. And I kind of like them. Just looking at these two, I think I should try to find this sketchbook and look through it. I think it’s just over on a shelf across the room from me. I should find time to look through it later today.

This one is from the last of the Tidal Wave Sketchbooks, and is sort of an epilogue to the Tidal Wave Sketchbooks, because by this point, the relationship that is chronicled in the Tidal Wave Sketchbooks had ended – or at least the romantic part of it had, and I was involved with somebody new and was about to follow her to Buffalo. She was already in Buffalo, and this, of course, is documenting a missed phone call from her. She must have called, and I missed the phone call, and there I was.

Actually, I can kind of recognize that phone console there. I probably listened to the voicemail, and that’s probably what this is – a drawing of me, listening to the voicemail of the missed phone call. This is in colored pencil, of course, in a rather dingy old sketchbook that had a red cover, if I recall. I haven’t seen it around lately. It was in a box somewhere stored away. This one never ended up becoming a painting. I don’t even think I used this as one of the paper pieces, although I’d have to check.

Update: I was looking for something else the other day, and happened to notice a box labeled sketchbooks – it turns out that’s where these sketchbooks are. There were also sketchbooks I really wasn’t confident I had – from very early days in Venice. I’ve only glanced at them but I’m looking forward to going through them soon.