I have to admit that I’ve been following covered of the protests in Cairo with a tenacity that borders on obsession. Between reading AP and the Times on my iPhone and googling the Al Jazeera website, I’ve been able to find what amounts to the closest I can get to hour-by-hour coverage. Back in 1998 I spent 5 days in Cairo during what had to be the hottest week of the year. The city was amazing and intense and, even after spending traveling to megacities like New York and Bangkok, it was quite intimidating. But I loved it, and it stays on my mind, even to this day. I think about it almost every day.
This drawing is inspired by the amazing story of the Cairo residents who joined together to form a human chain around the Egyptian museum to protect it from looters. Such collective action is only ever possible among people who truly love their city. To the protest Cairenes–best of luck. Be safe and have peace in the very near future.
I was looking at a book of ancient Ethiopian sacred art the other day. Looking at all the beautiful paintings of Black angels and nativity scenes and other Biblical moments got me to thinking about the notion of Black representations of God. I am always interested in depictions of figures from the major religious traditions of the world that challenge and/or expand U.S. and European depctions of divinity and the sacred. And so I decided to add my own work to the mix. Here is my drawing of a Black God, watching over the greatest city on the planet.
Like yesterday’s drawing, this picture is based on the students I passed a couple days ago on my ride home. I took some liberties, as you might have guessed. I aged them all, so that they appear to be old enough in high school or college, and then I gave each of the guys much longer hair than any of the kids I passed in my car. The expressions are pretty much true to life, though none of the students on whom this drawing is based were wearing beards. At 13 or 14, they were probably not quite old enough for facial hair.
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.
