No. 261: "Drawing Dark" (Lamentations 1:12)

DRAWING DARK by Tom Wills and Jeanne Starmack, August 2014

"Drawing Dark" (No. 261) is a true original, and also a collaborative effort between photographer, artist and writers.
The soon-to-be owner of this work, Jeanne, lives in western Pennsylvania and snapped a cell phone picture of this cross on a country road. She and I spoke off and on about this image for several months.

"I saw it on a walk last spring on a country road around Easter time, near my house. Those people put it out every Easter.  It does make a striking pose out there every year," she explains.

Original photo and blog notes

The sign bears an excerpt from Lamentations 1:12 (King James version):
Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the LORD hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger."
 

Jeanne wanted this drawing dark and overcast and did, in fact, choose its title.
"I need a name that reflects that angst, that torment, that sense of betrayal by fellow humans," she said. Really.
"I'll leave that to you. I'll just keep drawing dark," I replied.
"Perfect. Call the picture Drawing Dark," she responded.
Then I said: "That would actually work. Because it is getting dark in the sky. And it is dark. And the message is open to much interpretation. It's just so damned lonely looking."

To hear Jeanne explain it, the cross and sign, and the bare landscape coming out of winter, led her to find a deeper meaning in the image:  
"The road is a metaphor for life. The cross and the sign are a metaphor for all those people who have sorrows and insurmountable troubles in life. ... The cross and the sign equal the anguish and suffering of someone who has no one to care. He's reaching out to people in his life who are going about their business, not noticing him, for help. In the picture, they are the "You" in the question, "Is it nothing to you..."  

Grid method

The drawing is unique in that I used a grid method for drawing the trees and the field. The drawing, then, is a series of square sections blended together. This method helped me to keep track of the hills and valleys, tree lines and many nooks and crannies. 
I added a bit of extra shading to the cross in an effort to make it stand out from the bleak landscape.
The clouds are from a different exposure of the same photo, overcast and pressing down.

Unlike my friend Jeanne, I see some hope when I look at the finished drawing. I see an old rugged cross that continues to stand strong against the elements, every Easter. The sign is becoming weathered and the wood has gone dry and gray, yet it continues to speak to those who pass on the road. Perhaps it is meant to have several interpretations, all personal.

She wanted "Drawing Dark" framed. A big, dark frame.

By the way, Jeanne likes to challenge me.  Here's another one we put together a few years ago. Read about these dolls and another photo here:
 http://tomwillsproductions.blogspot.com/2012/09/no-166-toys-in-attic.html

No. 260: Shakey

 SHAKEY By Tom Wills, August 2014, 23x27" (framed) $200

I spent three days immobilized with back pain, down in my cave of art and music, tripping out to 12 hours' worth of Neil Young. I had time to bring out a lot of his hairy detail because I really had nothing else to do and not many places to go. The effect was very spooky but the result is good. I like the hair, and the beard is grizzly.

I'm better now, but Neil Young is still spooky.  A believer ("When God Made Me") who sings about killing movie starts ala Manson ("Revolution Blues"). He's also political ("Ohio," "American Dream"), sentimental ("Old Man"), criminal ("Down By The River") and romantic ("A Man Needs a Maid.") Neil Young loves his big cars -- sings about them a lot -- but needs a road map, because baby he's all over the place, and Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere.

This picture reflects my favorite period for Neil Young, through his first five albums -- an astounding whirlwind through Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, Harvest, Tonight's The Night, After The Gold Rush and his most twisted genius fare ever, On The Beach. (Held back from CD release for years, he finally relented. Perhaps it spooks him, too.)

"Well, I'm a barrel of laughs,
with my carbine on
I keep 'em hoppin',
till my ammunition's gone.
But I'm still not happy,
I feel like
there's something wrong.
I got the revolution blues,
I see bloody fountains,
And ten million dune buggies
comin' down the mountains.
Well, I hear that Laurel Canyon
is full of famous stars,
But I hate them worse than lepers
and I'll kill them
in their cars." *

Keep in mind that, during this fruitful period, he also was contributing to and performing with his sometime-pals Crosby, Stills and Nash. 

Playing through all of these records is like listening to a scrapbook: Many of the songs are clearly of their era. Most of the records had not been played in their entirety since I was in high school, yet I can remember where I got them, who I was with and when we listened to them.

I always preferred the concise titles to the half-hour wankfests Young has put his fans through, at full volume, in later years. I'm also quite fond now of his acoustic or "country" sides, now that I'm old enough to appreciate the craft and the skill.

Hell of a guitarist, though he's all over the map and the scales -- as well as the volume knob.

His voice quivers all over that harmonic scale too, and he has adopted the pseudonym Bernard Shakey for all of his film work. 

I find it ironic that Neil Young is on the same label as Frank Sinatra, Reprise -- the label Sinatra started. 

The Chairman of the Board and Shakey; Mr. Concise and Mr. Blow Out Your Earholes for A Full Album Side.

What a conversation that would have been, in Neil's big Lincoln Continental ("the best car that Ford ever made").

Betcha Frank's voice would'a quivered as they drove into the desert.

Revolution Blues on the 8-track ...

 
*Excerpt from "Revolution Blues" P.C. 1974 Silver Fiddle (BMI)

To purchase "Shakey," email hankbonesman@embarqmail.com or willstom01@gmail.com

Clearance Sale!

ERIC CLAPTON,   24x30"  10/12  No. 174  $160

You might have noticed, over the past five years, that I'm a pretty prolific guy. If I'm not drawing for a client, then I am usually drawing something for myself. It's a good way to practice and improve. But it can also lead to storage and space issues.

(click on all images to enlarge)

BARBARA EDEN, 25x32"  7/13  No. 207  $170

My co-workers, family and friends can tell you that my "overflow" is being kept in their offices and other spare spaces. The available wall space here at home ebbs and flows with what is coming and going.

Some of my practice runs are for sale, and always have been. The deal here is, local pickup or delivery only. I won't ship a glass-framed picture. Too heavy, too risky, too expensive.

These are generally large. The measurements are "in the frame" measurements.

EDDIE VAN HALEN,  24x30"  1/12  No. 141  $200 (ink and watercolor)

If you have a favorite space and need some original zing, these may be your thing. 

All are nicely framed, sealed, numbered and signed.

Consider an original.

And if you're not in the market, I still hope that you enjoy the view.

Maybe stop by and look around at several other pieces on display, by appointment.

Tom Wills

August 2014

hankbonesman@embarqmail.com

willstom01@gmail.com

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BIRD AND MILES  19x24"  12/12  No. 182  $170

RICK NIELSEN (Cheap Trick)  19x23"  10/13  No. 218  $120

MICK AND KEITH 25x30"  5/12  No. 154  $200

RON AND ROD 30x36"  6/14  No. 253  $180

HANK SR. and JR.  21x29"  7/11 No. 54  $180

TIGER LILY 17x21"  8/13 No. 212  $120

PAUL McCARTNEY  26x32"  8/13  No. 214  $200

LOU REED  26x32"  11/13  No. 223   $200

TOM WAITS  20x24"  1/12  No. 142  $160

No. 258: Hittin' That Note

No. 258: "Hittin' That Note"  Billie Holiday
SOLD

This is a short story about decay. About beauty and sadness.
No. 258 is Billie Holiday, drawn with a Dixon 308 Beginners pencil.
Both began sharp but ended worn down to nearly nothing.
This picture is from 1947, about midway through her career and near the end of its peak.
She died in 1959 with 70 cents in the bank and $750 with her.

Gilbert Millstein of The New York Times wrote:
Holiday died: Friday July 17, 1959 at 3.10, age 44 in Metropolitan Hospital, room 6A12, New York, in the bed in which she had been arrested for illegal possession of narcotics a little more than a month before, as she lay mortally ill; in the room from which a police guard had been removed – by court order – only a few hours before her death, which, like her life, was disorderly and pitiful. 

She had been strikingly beautiful, but she was wasted physically to a small, grotesque caricature of herself. The worms of every kind of excess – drugs were only one – had eaten her ... The likelihood exists that among the last thoughts of this cynical, sentimental, profane, generous and greatly talented woman of 44 was the belief that she was to be arraigned the following morning. She would have been, eventually, although possibly not that quickly. In any case, she removed herself finally from the jurisdiction of any court here below.

It is not her voice that makes her memorable, for it is thin and raspy, and more so near the end. It is her phrasing, which remained impeccable. It's also, at times, her choice of songs and lyrics that reflected her struggles. "Strange Fruit," "God Bless The Child," and my favorite, "The End of a Love Affair," which appeared as the last song on Side 2 of  "Lady In Satin" -- but only in the mono version!

This drawing was the end of my love affair with that Dixon 308, a fat black drawing stick that used to be doled out in elementary schools as kids learned handwriting. Do they still teach that? The big and black 308s are gone. Ticonderoga makes a yellow 308, and I'll be ordering a $9 box -- and I know that they will not be the same.

The impression left by the original, however, will last. 

My God, that was a lot of graphite.