Here’s another drawing from my Alternative Press Expo sketchbook. The tall, slim brother in this picture took a good long look at my table, but said little. He gave me a nod of approval and a warm smile before moving on to the comic book sellers across the aisle.
Ajuan Mance
This is the first of a series of drawings from my weekend at the Alternative Press Expo. This man stopped by my table on Sunday morning, curious about the reason I’d chosen to focus on African American men. He was not displeased by my attention to this subject, but he was a little uncertain about my motivations.
Ajuan Mance
This is another drawing from my series of Black men in suits. This is a composite of several drawings of men I saw in the audience when I recently attended the musical Scottsboro Boys.*
Ajuan Mance
*In case you were wondering, the production was done very respectfully, despite its controversial use of blackface minstrelsy. If it wasn’t for the controversy, though, it probably never would have even made it to Broadway. Despite the previous accomplishments of its creators, whose earlier musicals are simply brilliant and edgy, this one felt thin, cautious, and unusually restrained…which a 21st-century musical in which it’s white creators blackface minstrelsy as a visual metaphor probably should be. Nevertheless, the show was not, ultimately, successful. The printed program, however, was outstanding! Seriously.
Hi Everyone,
Inspired by my experiences at Oakland Art Murmur, SF Zinefest, and the Alternative Press Expo, I have created a shop on ETSY. At the 8-Rock Press store you can buy prints of some of the art from this website. I’ll be adding additional items in the near future! I hope you’ll drop by and take a look! Click on THIS LINK or click on the word “shop” at the top of this page.
Best,
Ajuan Mance
I’m just coming off a wonderful and exciting weekend at the Alternative Press Expo. During the Expo, I did six drawings of attendees, and I can’t wait to post them. I should, however, finish up one family of pics before I start another series. So, here’s another drawing of Black men in suits, a theme that began to get my attention about a month or month or so ago. I seemed to see Black men in suits everywhere. Here are two more.
Ajuan Mance
… a composite drawing of the three Black men I saw during the morning rush in the financial district, downtown SF, September 5, 2012.
Ajuan Mance
Last week it seemed that everywhere I looked I saw a brother with lots of hair. This week my eye has been drawn to Black men wearing suits. It all started on Saturday night. A friend hooked me up with excellent seats at the Andre Ward vs. Chad Dawson fight (at Oracle Arena). The audience was almost as much fun to watch as the fight itself. A lot of the folks in attendance were dressed to impress. Women were wobbling up and down the bleachers in outrageously high heels and men were styling and profiling in suits and ties that ranged from tasteful and understated to outrageous and excessive. Since that night I’ve had suits on the brain, and the next several drawings are composites of the men in suits I’ve spotted over the last several days.
Ajuan Mance
This stone-faced gentleman was among the throng of unhappy customers waiting for service at the Best Buy wireless communications counter late Sunday afternoon. I had no idea so many people could have so many difficult tech questions, purchases, and returns so late in the weekend. It was a marathon queue session that would have been absolutely intolerable without the company of one of my best grad school friends, Michele B., who was purchasing a wireless hotspot. All of that waiting was just more time for us to catch up on each others careers, relationships, and travels. Best wishes to my very old friend! Can’t wait to see you again in November!
Ajuan Mance
At Friday’s Oakland Art Murmur, I was selling small zines of selected drawings from my blog. I had a table at Uptown Body and Fender, and from where I was seated, not too far from the rear door, I had a great view of the attendees entering from the back parking lot of the building, where a local band was playing. I could hear also hear many of their interesting (and sometimes not-so-interesting) comments as they passed by. This man continues my theme of Black men with lots of hair, something I’ve been noticing a lot in recent days. My favorite thing about this drawing, though, is the 19th-century photograph of The White House that I used in his thought bubble. As he passed by my table” this man and his female companion were talking about the current president and his chances for reelection. Just as he was moving out of earshot, I heard him say, “If I was in the White House…”
Ajuan Mance
We’ve all had the experience of hearing a song that gets stuck in your head for hours. Well, the same thing sometimes happens with the things you see. You catch a glimpse of something interesting or unusual–or even something you see every day, but that somehow catches your attention in an unusual way–and you continue to notice the same kinds of people or places or objects wherever you go. One example of this took place after I read the first Harry Potter novel. Once I finished the book, it seemed, all of a sudden, that everywhere I looked there were little boys in round glasses and little girls with bushy, brown Hermione Granger hair.
Last week I watched a DVD of one of my oldest friends performing in a recent flute recital. She played several solo pieces and two duets, one with her older son on violin and the other with her younger son on piano. At the time of the recital her younger son was sporting a remarkably large afro, reminiscent of my grammar school years in the 1970s.
Ever since I saw that DVD I have been noticing Black men and boys with lots of hair. I guess you can say that brothers with big, bushy, afros or long, luxurious deadlocks are on heavy rotation in the part of my brain that governs what catches my eye. The man in this drawing is the best of both worlds. The size of his cap says nothing if not that he has some very long deadlocks, but they’re piled up onto his head and tucked under his cap in the shape of a big, bushy afro.
Ajuan Mance