Purple and green is one of my favorite color combinations. It’s one of the reasons I like Wimbledon so much. (I think that makes the wrong kind of tennis fan.) My love of purple and green is also one of the reasons I particularly like this drawing. The man in this drawing was wearing the most wonderful purple sweater, with matching purple glasses and an olive green shirt.
On the day I saw him, I was already in a good mood. It was my first trip to Sweet Bar Bakery, and I’d had the most wonderful plate of chicken salad there. Then I ran into an old friend, and we laughed and drank iced tea and talked about our creative projects. When this man walked in to the bakery, with his remarkable purple and green ensemble, it was the perfect exclamation point on what had already been a pretty great day.
I’ve gone back to Sweet Bar several times since, but I haven’t seen the guy in the purple sweater and eyeglass frames. Then again, I’m not sure I’d even recognize him if he wasn’t wearing purple.
In the famous words of the rapper Lil Kim, “I’ve been gone for a minute/Now I’m back at the jump off.” In this context, I’m using jump off to mean, “anything new and/or hot; especially in reference to a party or material item” (UrbanDictionary.com). It’s been so many weeks since I last posted a drawing that this whole project feels brand new to me.
I’ve been doing lost of art, but the two art projects I was working to complete took up pretty much every minute I wasn’t at my job. I was already backlogged on drawings, and then I had to drop everything else to complete these two assignments. Now I’m really behind in my posts; but that’s a good thing, in away. I have so many drawings to post, that I think I’ll be able to make up for some of the time I’ve lost.
Over the next several weeks, check back regularly, and if you see something you like–or something that makes you think or question–post a comment. I hope to hear from you.
I ran into this guy at a Duane Reade drugstore, right around the corner from the Brooklyn Historical Society. He wanted to know why I was carrying a file box. He asked, “What you got in that box?” I told him I had lots of pens and pencils and a few notebooks. He seemed a little disappointed. I wish I’d made up a more exciting response. Perhaps I could have told him I was carrying nuclear waste or a shrunken head or some evidence of alien life.
At the 42nd Street-Times Square transit station, New York, New York.
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The massive transit complex at Times Square-42nd St. is a little intimidating. The signs are actually quite clear, and if you simply pay attention to where you’re being directed, it’s pretty hard to get on the wrong train. Still, the experience of being underground, with so very many people, in a complex of stations whose various levels of track seem to extend more and more deeply into the earth can only be described as unsettling.
At the same time, passing through this station was also kind of amazing. There were so many Black people everywhere I looked, and I wanted to do portraits of so many of the men around me. It’s been a while since I’ve experienced so much ethnic diversity within the Black population of a single region, and I can’t wait to go back with more pens and more paper and a lot more time.
There were not that many African American tablers at the Brooklyn Zine Fest, but there were somewhat more Black attendees. Brooklyn’s fest is not unique in this way; I have yet to attend a zine festival or expo that has significant Black participation. Still, Brooklyn’s organizers are keenly aware of the importance of greater diversity among the festival’s participants, and I am very excited about the possibilities for the future.
This attendee was a really nice guy, and he was intrigued by the idea of a series of drawings of Black men. I sketched him as he browsed at other tables on my aisle, after first giving him a heads-up that he would be likely to see himself in a coming post.
Don’t you just lovelovelove his schoolboy scarf and matching beanie?
