Last weekend I had the wonderful experience of being part of the First Fridays downtown art walk in Oakland (California, for those who might not know where I am based). I was showing several of my newest pieces at Uptown Body and Fender. Many thanks to the proprietors there for letting artists invade your space on a regular basis. One thing I really like about Oakland is the diversity of the arts community, and there were a number of interestingly coiffed and stylishly clad Black men and women who passed through and said hello. The man in this drawing didn’t actually come to my particular table, but he stopped near where I was stationed, to chat with some of his friends. He was there long enough for me to get a good look at his expertly trimmed facial hair, which I found impressive. I can’t really imagine what it would be like to have a beard, but it seems like it would require an awful lot of unpleasant and time-consuming maintenance. Kudos to the men who are willing to put in the work. There is certainly a place for the Grizzly Adams-type free-for-all beard, but that doesn’t work on every guy, nor is it appropriate for every setting (perfect for the Alaska wilderness, not so great for the U.S. Naval Academy). For this drawing, I have taken this well chin-coiffed figure and place him on a stool, mostly just because I saw a cool picture in a magazine of I guy sort of sit-leaning on a stool. And, for the record, the subject in question was brown, not green, but green goes so well with purple, and I really wanted to do a light purple background.

Ajuan Mance