If you were driving down San Pablo on Friday afternoon, you may have spotted these gentlemen. They were standing in front of the Easy Market, at Haskell St., chatting and watching the world good by. I passed them as I was heading into Berkeley around 1pm, and I was surprised to see that they were still there two hours later, when I was heading back toward Emeryville. I’m not sure what they were talking about, but the conversation must have been good. As one of my friends likes to say, “they were coversatin’ HARD.”
This drawing takes a stylishly dressed gentleman who was sitting a couple tables down from me at Peet’s Emeryville, and places him at the boardroom table where he really seemed to belong. Maybe it was his demeanor, or his geeky-chic confidence, but something about him conveyed self-possession and power.
Saw these two brothers talking to each other in downtown Oakland. Actually, the guy on the left was doing all the talking, and the guy on the right was mostly listening. I don’t think they knew each other, and I think the guy on the left was asking for money. It was interesting just to see how the man on on the right gradually warmed up to the man who was speaking with him, as his expression turned from annoyed to engaged. In this drawing, he’s somewhere in the middle, just leaving annoyed and heading for a bit more intrigued. I don’t know if the man on the left, who really was dressed in a red shirt, every extracted any cash from the guy he was talking to, but he just may have made a bit of a friend.
In this drawing of a young brother who was standing on the sidewalk in front of the Marcus Garvey Commons, I was inspired by the work of John Biggers, especially paintings like “Shotguns” (1987) and “Four Seasons” (1984).
The line at Peet’s coffee in Emeryville seems to collect some of the most interesting characters in all of Alameda County. This guy stood out because he was the tallest person in the entire cafe, by at least 4 or 5 inches, I would guess. It was his detailed and animated description of the way he liked his latte–complete with dramatic gestures and expressions–that scored him a post on this blog.
It’s not hard to figure out why I noticed the gentleman in this drawing. He was the only person in the Macy’s men’s store who was dressed in all white…and he wasn’t a store employee. He was just stylin’– and stylin’ HARD. Even though he was easy to notice, and for obvious reasons, this drawing made me think about how it is that I decide who to draw. It made me wonder which of the Black men I encounter in my daily life stand out for me and why. When I come up with some answers, I’ll post them. For now, though, I decided to use a photograph of a crowd as the background for this drawing, to sorta kinda capture the idea of standing out in a crowd. The background is from a photo I took at the USA Rugby Sevens in 2010.
I spent this afternoon at the 2011 National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in Higher Education. held at San Francisco’s Moscone Center. When I entered the conference hall, I saw people everywhere. Everywhere there were conference attendees chatting, thumbing through their programs, and rushing to the next session. There were a few islands of seating and those were the only places where the pace seemed to slow. That was where people went to take a break from the bustling all around them. And then there was this guy, leaning against the wall near the elevators to the mezzanine, standing quite still, and with his eyes closed. I could tell he was not asleep, but I was intrigued by his curious choice to take a standing time out. He was there for at least 15 minutes, because I saw him there on my way to the free coffee station, and on my way back; and he seemed incredibly trusting. His laptop bag was on the floor at his feet, but he did not seem at all concerned with the possibility that his computer might get stolen. Nor did he seem to care that someone like me just might stand and stare at him for a while, with the intention of drawing him later. For that I am grateful.
It’s drawing number 200! On this auspicious occasion, I’ve posted this tribute to the jazz composer and pianist Eubie Blake. The drawing depicts a local piano player who I actually came across on Oakland public access. He was actually playing “Let’s Do It (Let’s Fall in Love),” the Cole Porter standard. In this drawing, though, he is playing “I’m Just Wild about Harry” by Eubie Black and Noble Sissle. The sheet music in the background is for the same song.
Thanks for taking this ride with me. I hope you enjoy the next 200 drawings.
His style of dress was, like, totally new school–American Apparel t-hirt, True Religion jeans, and some kind of Cole-Haan-looking sneaker things; but everything else about this guy–his shades, his neatly trimmed facial hair, his pose, and the expression he wore on his face, said Old School Cool.
This drawing is a bit of a beta test. I’m playing a few games with borders and the stroke feature in Photoshop, just to see what happens when I combine different colors. I thought I’d pick a drawing that’s fairly straightforward, just so that the border could take center stage. I guess I could call this the 1001 Black Men: Silly Sunday edition.
