Monday, November 24, 2008

Cedric

I am in the process of making this portrait of Cedric (Mars Volta). It's nowhere near finished. I could certainly use some advice. I think that I will smooth out the colors and bring back scratchy drawing on top and try to give some zest to the environment with more chroma.
In the original drawing he was teetering on tiptoes, and I'm feeling like the gesture is a bit lost, so I'm trying different compositions. Now that I look at it again, the smaller one seems to be better still, since he's about to fall right at you... uuuuuuuh need some time away from it...Here's the original.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Flower Stream

I am just upset that the little sketchbook with all my classroom doodles like this one is lost...

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Tired Fall

Walking hunger paths, not on puddles but on reflections in them,
stroking the disconnect between us as though it were soft to the touch,
I watch, my eyes swelling in emptiness,
and eruptions of holy vulgar wants settle captive, as I answer
in a haiku of politeness that reveals nothing.
You don’t hear the tremble of my breath in my greeting.
I do not touch your heart with any particular sentiment crafted into my words.
My heart I try to quiet.

You sign on, you sign off.
A name in a list.
Where is the force still pulling me to the certainty of what was real?
You give me a caress to imagine, and I fall into false memories.
Where you’ve touched there is still the sting of a happened life
that won’t let me reason my way out of this maze you took me to.
You have never left, yet it is all I know.


There are calmer days when patience is a smile.
Leaves cover Richmond streets in heaps of tired Fall,
covering,
covering…
I’ve walked here, mindlessly, time and time again,
arranging days into a string of consecutive and reasonable deeds,
but always looking for someone’s eyes to pierce the lull of forgetfulness.

There is dirty snow dragged along the roads of proud Moscow
extravagant in her bright dress damp with exhaust and puddle water on the edges,
trampled by the stressful, spat on by her smokers.

Stores and hospitals. Old soviet factories. Tram tracks in the white.
There is a fur tree my parents planted
growing still, lean and green.
There is the aloe plant blooming where an avalanche has swallowed a city in the sierra.
There is desert breath stirred by the crowding combis in deranged Lima,
all colors muted to grey and hunger.
There is the coffee cup I drank from.

I am looking for piercing eyes.
Most eyes are asleep.
You sign on.


Have you lived more than I have?
Have you yearned less…
Have my hands warmth enough to give a day that’s simple?

Leaves have covered my building. Red and yellow buried the street, made my windows church-like. There is the smell of burning seeping from the houses of the wealthy, where chimneys aren’t clogged with concrete like in the houses rented to college drunkards. Wealthy houses smell of nice whiskey.
The Fall swallowed my street.
You sign off.
Leaves keep falling. Covering, covering everything the street has been. My heart isn’t quiet and my hands are burning.

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Holidays

Friday, October 24, 2008

Second


I'm not sure whether this one is about intimacy, uncertainty, or just about how much I love hair.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Comprehending Her Origin

Work in progress.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

This is as close as I could get to Bill Clinton.

Former US president Bill Clinton came to a Democratic rally at the VCU Commons court last Sunday to give a speech in support of Obama. Virginia being a swing state these days, there is a lot more campaigning going on than before the last election, and I have to admit there is a selling point to in-person campaigning. Being used to everything in the world of politics happening pretty much on televesion I have seen and been a part of the overwhelming feeling of distance and irrelevance to politics among the young and the not-so-wealthy. Politics on TV is show-entertainment, popularity contest made epic, and with world order implications that we know of mostly from Comedy Central.

Now when somebody like former president himself comes to your university, stands right where you normally try to quickly munch some lunch on a windy day between classes, how can one not feel like all of a sudden your life is politically important and your vote is needed and all that. You see a political figure as a man of normal proportions and with physical limbs that he uses to shake hands and to point when he says something particularly crowd-pleasing.
The "humble" factor, the grass roots aesthetics will get you if the rhetoric doesn't. A party rally is a rock concert without music, and the crowd leaves with a sense of involvement. Is that sense an illusion, or the real thing which ends up moving social change one way or the other...?

Monday, September 29, 2008

Richmond Sketches

Night Alley by Shafer Street.
On Stuart Circle
Before Mars Volta got on stage at Rams Head, Baltimore.
Yuko Shimizu giving a lecture at VCU.

Crossroads Cafe

Cafe which I like a lot.

Floating Dolphins

Stuff from my head...