graphite on paper 10"x10"
This is part of an unknown city with a major thoroughfare snaking its way to a graceful bridge over an unknown river. I wanted it to seem dream-like.
Every time I begin a graphite drawing I feel vaguely guilty, because most people want to see paintings. I've had this itch, though, to continue my theme of aerial views of various cities, and I can best express what I want to say in graphite.
There is something about a view from a great height that really captures my imagination. Looking down with a birdlike- or even godlike- view of a complex city seems to me to be like being able to contemplate the course your life has taken with sudden clarity. When I draw these kinds of scenes, lines from Jane Hirshfield's poem It Was Like This: You Were Happy always come to my mind. Here the speaker has at last been able to look clearly, but without regret, over her life:
Now it is almost over.
Like a lover, your life bends down and kisses your life.
It does this not in forgiveness—
between you, there is nothing to forgive-
but with the simple nod of a baker at the moment
he sees the bread is finished with transformation.
Meanwhile, my Mom's been encouraging me to paint the more cheerful subject of flowers, so I'm off to the market to have a look.
I, for one, am enjoying the drawings. The aerial view makes me slightly but pleasantly giddy. We all fly in our dreams, don't we?
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