Driving up 35th today I passed several groups of school kids, dressed in their uniforms. It looked like school was just getting out, except that it was dark outside. I checked my watch and it was 6pm. If it was only one group of young people, I would have thought that one of the schools was having a special event, but there were several different groups of students at different points along the way, dressed in several different uniforms. I guess some Oakland kids have much longer school days that I ever had. The two boys in this drawing looked to be about 13 or 14. They were standing and waiting for their ride home and their expressions seemed to suggest that they were tired. When I saw them, I thought about how different life must be for young people whose school days are structured around the hours of a traditional adult workday and how different that must be from the way things were when I was in school…not better and not worse, just different.
Another drawing from the Seattle files. This drawing depicts one of two priests passed while I was walking down the main drag in the Ballard shopping district. In the Bay Area I don’t often see clergy members of any ethnicity dressed in traditionally-styled shirts, so when the image of this African American priest wearing a blue shirt with a traditional collar, he stayed on my mind. In addition, I liked the way his bright white hair picked up the white square in his collar.
This is a sketch that I did from memory, of a student I saw standing outside of the old bubble tea shop on Bancroft Ave. in Berkeley. He was hold a backpack at his side, and the straps were dragging the ground. I remember wondering if he realized how dirty those straps were going to be, and whether or not he was actually going to put them over his shoulder.
A couple weeks ago, I was flying out of the Seattle airport. My flight was on time, but a flight at the next gate had been cancelled, and there were a number of people waiting to be re-booked. I’ve been in the same frustrating situation many times.Two of the displaced travelers were speaking in harsh tones to the attendants at the gate, but most of the others were sitting around or standing around looking anxious and unhappy. One man caught my eye because he seemed so much calmer than everyone else. He was sitting on the floor with his bags and his coat (which I did not include in this drawing), waiting quietly, watching the other grumbling and stressed-out passengers around him.
I gotta love that kinda 50-something brother who’s keeping it old school with his clothing and hair. I saw this particular gentleman as I was driving past the Big-O Tires on MacArthur Blvd. With the glasses, the ‘fro, and the extra large collar, he reminded me of the outfits the cool high school guys used to wear when I was a kid growing up on Long Island. I wouldn’t be surprised if this man had been dressing the same way since he was in high school. After all, if you find a look that works, why change it? More than 30 years later, this man still looks good. As we used to say back in the ’80s, “go on with your baaaaad self.”
I was at the 7th street post office again, this time waiting to send some priority mail packages. Even though the line long and slow-moving, most of the customers in line were in good spirits, smiling and laughing about the wait. One notable exception was the man in this drawing, whose sour expression contrasted starkly with his crisp and freshly-ironed white shirt. He was standing a few customers behind me, so I don’t know how quickly or slowly he made his way to the front of the line, but I hope his day (and his demeanor) improved once he finally reached the service window.
I spend a lot of time in bookstores, and I especially like the ones that have the most comfortable chairs for browsing. This drawing is inspired by a man I noticed at a South Bay bookstore, enjoy a big comfortable chair in the children’s book section while his wife browsed the shelves with two small children, a boy and a girl. From time to time the children would run over to his chair with a book and say something to their father who would smile approvingly, and then the children would rush back to their mother to look at something else.
Have you noticed that almost every cafe has wi-fi these days, and how almost every cafe with wi-fi is serving as the home office for an army of laptop-wielding telecommuters and students. Don’t mistake my observation for a critique, though. I am one of those laptop jockeys, and on any given day I can be seen poring over a manuscript or some research notes at one of several East Bay haunts. I love the new and expanded identity of the cafe. I really enjoy what feels like an unspoken bond with the other workers. And, more than anything else, I love that I can take my office with me wherever I go, preferably to a location that serves big glasses of ice tea.
But I digress. The man is this picture has struck a classic cafe pose. His laptop is just outside of the field of view, and he’s day dreaming, resting his eyes after staring into a computer screen for the past two hours. Starting off into space is a prime activity of telecommuters. Present company included.
This is an older drawing that I did a couple years ago, after a trip to the late great Cody’s bookstore, on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley. I saw a happy looking guy looking at books in the Art History section. The whole time I was browsing in the store, he was smiling to himself and reading through this book on the artist Vermeer. I am a big fan of the Dutch masters, and I wanted to ask him what he liked about this particular artist and his work; but he seemed to be so deeply involved in the book that I decided not to disturb him.
