A few months back a friend of mine messaged me on FaceBook asking me to go to a gathering of artists at his place. I couldn’t go because of the DayJob. I got another message that the group was getting together again on Friday. This time I was able to go. I was able to meet a bunch of local artists and talk about some ideas for showing our art and things we’d like to be able to do.

I wasn’t shy about drawing my fellow artists. I stared as they spoke. We passed around examples of our art. We talked. We passed around sketchbooks. We all drew.

Here are some drawings from Friday night.

It’s the first art group meeting I’ve been to since I left college way back in 1998. I  had trepidations about going but all in all it was a great time. I met a guy who keeps what he calls “his books” and I would call art journals. They blew my mind. I could have sat there all night and looked through his books. He worked really simply in large sized Moleskine sketchbooks and regular sharpies. Thick bold lines. Simple. Mind blowing. I met scott who makes art chairs and sculptures. Bruce who makes comics and puppets.  A potter. A portrait painter, 4×8 foot portraits. A guy who makes soft sculptures and fun audio devices. We were all so diverse and yet all had art in common.

I started out on art early. I started drawing when I was young and kept on drawing until, well, I guess I never stopped. When I went off to High School I was one of the art kids. I spent an unusually large amount of time in the art room and drawing in study hall. I also played sports and was involved in a lot of other activities. Art was my main squeeze.

Being top dog in the art department meant I was asked to submit and participate in a lot of contests. I held a lot of disdain toward art contests, still do, and yet entered them, I still do that too. I may have been one of the top artists at my high school but I went up against this girl from our rival high school during every competition. We’ll call her Mary*. Mary was from a rich family in the town next to mine, her dad was a professor or something like that, and she went to art camp, got to take classes at the local college and played sports. No matter what I did I always came in second place to Mary, except when we played softball. Defeating her on the softball field was nothing compared to losing to her in every art contest I entered.

After 2 years of competing against her I gave up. I stopped entering contests, declaring them rigged politically in her favor. I actually told my art teacher this on multiple occasions. She always asked how I was jaded so young. The truth though was that Mary was a pretty good artist. She used color well and had been able to spend a lot of time working on her craft with some really great instructors. Mary was a hard person to have as a nemesis because she was also really nice.**

Our Senior year we had a group art show and our two schools were scheduled to be at the gallery at the same time. My friends and I were somewhat ambivalent and yet excited to have our work hanging in the local college’s gallery. It was a big deal. Somehow, Mary and I ended up working in the same room together and I got to see her work ethic up close. She was deliberate and careful, measuring her art carefully, hanging it perfectly. My friends and I used two tacks, cord and a level to give us a baseline for our art. Our teacher letting us run the show. Ours looked good, Mary’s and her classmates looked better.***

What set Mary apart from teenage me was her work ethic toward art. While I worked moderately hard at art, I focused most of my attention on my other studies. Which assured me a scholarship to school but, I think, was detrimental to me as an artist.

Now that it’s been nearly 20 years since I got out of high school I realize I was jealous of all of the opportunities Mary had because her family was well off. I also see now that my hard work has paid off for me as an artist and as a person. I’m still making art, what is Mary doing? According to the town paper I read on one of my visits to my parent’s place, Mary is now a successful graphic designer.**** Now that we’re all grown up we both win, we’re both doing something we enjoy. Honestly, I'm really happy for her.

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For the last few weeks I’ve been walking a lot. In the summer I walk around town as a matter of habit, it’s nice out and pleasant to walk to the cafe for an iced coffee. Naturally, my walking increases. My doctor said to me during my last visit, “Have you considered walking?” Which I think is a funny way to say to me, “Hey tubby, you need to lose a few pounds and get your blood pressure down, so you know you should walk.” So I’ve increased my usual walks from short pleasant walks to longer less pleasant walks, especially with the heat we’ve been having.

One of the side effects of these walks is that my feet have been hurting because I’ve been walking in my usual shoes; chuck taylors, doc martins and the like. I haven’t had true athletic shoes in a very very long time. So last night I ventured into a big box shoe store and looked for womens’ sneakers that were black with no neon colors or pink, pale purple, or baby blue. Pretty much an impossible task. I found 4 out of 500 pairs of sneakers that were not garish in color.

I am tempted to go on a long tirade about how some women would like plain black sneakers or even black and white without the addition of neon colors, but I think that’s a tirade for another day.

As I tie these sneakers to my feet I feel like a big fat fraud. I used to be pretty athletic. I used to run, mountain bike and a lot of those athletic things. At some point I ran out of time. When I lace these shoes up it doesn’t feel right, like I'm a fraud. I know I’m not going to do the things these sneakers are suggested for like running or whatever course work is. Instead I’m going to be walking around my city with a camera around my neck, a sketchbook in my bag, and an eye out for interesting things. Pretty much the antithesis of athletic. I took them for a short spin last night and found them to be perfectly comfortable and lovely to wear.
I ended up with navy blue sneakers with a small hint of bright neon blue. I opted for these knowing that in a few short walks I’ll have them dirtied up to being unrecognizably colored.