Or When No News is… Just No News
Ever have that feeling that you might not make it to the next gas station?
It seems like my engine has stuttered to a halt, but I’m at the top of a long slope, like those ones you get in the Southwest USA, where the road seems to drop all the way to the far horizon, and I’ve pushed in the clutch, disengaged the shift and am just coasting.
So many things have come to conclusions this year – the two books, the two documentaries, several jobs that I raced to complete, and while I’m still full in the middle of other projects, my mind has fallen behind my footsteps.
All in all, I’ve been spending far too much time talking about myself – there is a fine line to tread and an equilibrium to maintain between what you do and talking about what you do. (Too much of the latter, and of course you eventually run out of things to say, unless of course talking about yourself and managing your paltry empire of imagery becomes your main task.)
Uninspired, but not inactive, I signed what felt like several million books at Aix-en-Provence last Saturday. True to form, I naturally visited this exquisite city in a beautiful part of France at a run, arriving just in time for the signing and leaving the next morning at first light to race back home… but determined to go back and see it again in a more clement season (and by daylight).
The major benefit of all this running about being that trains and planes are convenient places in which to draw, so the tangible result of all this is summed up by a fistfull of 4B pencils transformed into scribbles in now-full sketchbooks.
On one of these trips, I was diligently scribbling away in the train at an idea. (Ideas can be like rocks you don’t see when walking on a shadowy path. They send you stumbling and reeling by their unexpectedness, and you can ony catch your balance by sketching your way to a halt.) Obviously I become rather oblivious of my surroundings at that point, and only noticed deep into my doodling that the lady sitting in the seat across from me was watching me draw. Because I glanced up abstractedly from time to time at the ceiling or out the window, she had managed to convince herself I was discretely doing her portrait.
She didn’t exactly strike a pose, but did make an effort not to move too much, and give me her best three-quarter profile, with all those sliding glances that accompany trying to spy subrepticiously on someone you are convinced is looking at you, and want to keep an unobtrusive eye on them. (This obviously precluded actually asking what I was working on.)
Also, given that I am sorely lacking in even the most basic of social graces and barely even present half the time, I kept on with my sketch, which was going more or less where I wanted, and didn’t pay any more attention until the train reached its destination (and curiosity its height) as the last chance to get a glimpse of the drawing beng so industriously completed by the overly shy artist who was doubtlessly too timid to… anyway, the lady leapt into the aisle and lingered a split second just behind my shoulder.
Unfortunately, this is what I was drawing:
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She exited rather abruptly.
Aren’t people funny sometimes?
Sketching in public places is a wonderful pastime. It lets you impress people and make new acquaintances.
Merry Christmas to all!
John
