Something from the street

I've done tattoo designs before, but it's never been something I've ever been especially serious about.  But work at the cafe has me thinking more about where art and environment meet, and what that looks like.  I live in a city, I work in a city.  I'm finding myself interested in shifting away from ink drawings and more towards projects that reflect the essence of Philly and what life on the street is about.  Namely, tattoos, graffiti and found art sculpture.  I've been thinking more and more about "street art" (Philly's got thousands of murals, mosaics) and am increasingly tempted to roam streets late at night with paint.  

In the meantime, this is the first draft of a tattoo for Pedro, a coworker at the cafe.  The finished product is going to cover his arm between the two tattoos he already has and will include numerous influences from puerto rico, where his family is originally from.  Keep checking in to see how the drawing evolves, and how it turns out as a tattoo.

Line Eleven

monster(s)

Cafe Requests

 people to ask me for personalized drawings.  these are a few of them

for another staff member's son Kyseem

he likes diamonds

first draft of a "peace" tattoo

to a guest for his lady

he wants it red, but i don't know how to use colors

Line Ten

only human(s)

This drawing took at least six solid hours, with the last four spent filling in the frame pictured at the top.  The process of striking all those tiny little lines into the already tiny spaces has become a signature element of this style, and it makes me think about a couple things.  First, all that ink compressed into a small space tricks the eye.  From a distance, it seems as though the drawing has shades of grays.  Second, because there are so many lines, there are countless "mistakes" in the drawing: places where a line wanders too far over another line, places where lines aren't spaced evenly, places where line bent and slouch when they should be straight.  Again from a distance though, the drawing looks precise, clean.  

Perspective

People seem so put together sometimes.  What happens when you zoom in for that closer look though?  Seems we love precision: impossibly attractive celebrities, politicians that will solve all our societal woes, superheroes in movies, books, and on and on.  We love the magnifying glass too though, love exposing the celebrities, the Batmen, for who they really are.  We love those cellulite ridden bikini shots.  We love their dirty secrets and scandals, we love to zoom in.  

Perspective has been complicated at the cafe.  On the one hand, this is a population I've tended to idealize: oppressed people at the mercy of crappy circumstances.  Some circumstances, by virtue of being a voting, tax paying member of society, I have contributed to directly.  You see the man pan handling on the street corner, and it's not difficult to imagine a good soul in a tough spot.  

I've been zoomed in a lot at the cafe though.  I've seen lots and lots of small little lines crossing over others, countless moments of imperfection, disorder, madness.  Which is the more accurate perspective?  Is anyone really any different?

Line Nine

who needs shelter?

A homeless (shelter resistant) person plus a house (shelter) does not usually equal one less person living on the street.  

Line Eight

Reflection(s)

Line Seven

Deception(s)

     

Line Six

Hope(s)

Line Five

Frustration(s)

Line Four

Blessing(s)

Line Three

Heartbeat(s)

I've read that ancient greeks considered the "guts" of a person to be the emotional epicenter of love and emotion, and that the heart only took this position in western culture some time later.  I had a disturbing experience with the heart when this drawing was made, and I've been thinking about it since.  During the first few weeks of working the door, I turned many men and women away back into the cold winter night.  I turned away old people just out of the hospital, I turned away friends I had made in previous nights, I turned away people shivering from the cold, the snow piled on their bare heads and slouching shoulders.  I turned them away when I knew what their possibilities were for the night; none of them good.  I turned them away because we didn't have room at the cafe.  Or rather, the number of people we were allowed to admit for the night had been reached.  

I talked to a friend who had worked the same position before, and she described a time when she turned someone out that had later died in the cold.  I've wondered if I've already done the same thing and not yet heard about it.  We talked about breaking rules, about ignoring the limits set in place and bringing people that needed to be inside through the doors, regardless of consequences or reprimands.  We decided following the rules was the best thing to do.  This was heartbreaking.  

Since then, I've turned away many people.

I rarely feel a thing anymore.

  

What is this heart? It can be so upset in the presence of hurt, injustice, loss.  It can make you feel alive.  But it can also quietly beat along, completely indifferent to the exact same experiences it encounters just weeks before.  Isn't this true of love as well as sadness?  Can't we be so desperately in love, and yet feel nothing years, even months later?  What has changed?  

The heart seems stupid.  

An old woman came in the other night.  After taking a few steps into the building, she fell down the three stairs leading into the main room landing flat on her face.  She didn't move, she didn't make any noise.  She just laid there, blood pooling on the carpet and spreading away from her body.  The stupid heart pumps blood out through our wounds with as much gusto as it pumps it through our veins in order to keep us alive.  What does it mean that we rely on such an untrustworthy thing for our moral direction?  For choosing our mates and our friends?  The things we believe, and the places we put our hope?  I'm not sure what to make of this drawing anymore.  

Line Two

Tradition(s)

The savy observer will notice a number of different religious artistic traditions imbedded in the design of this drawing.  The ones I paid particular attention to were Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, and Judaism (sorry Voodoo).  I recently attended a conference where one of the main topics of conversation was what the future of the church might look like, and why fewer and fewer young people are going to church at all.  One of the things this discussion has me thinking about is not necessarily how to get more butts into pews but about how to point a finger towards the spiritual nature of the world.  For me, demonstrating that there's more to the universe than just random bouncing atoms and particles, that we have souls that need to be nourished and engaged with, is one of the primary objectives of art.  The discussion of what christianity is and why a younger person should be participating with it in a traditional church setting for me comes long after that person has been exposed to the mystery and beauty of the unknowable spiritual element of life.  Any religion can reveal this element, and I believe leaving different religious traditions out of the equation of what faith is and what it should be in 2010 is pointless.  Truth and beauty exist inside and outside stained glass windows, and it may well be time to begin blurring that distinction.    

Line One

                                                    

Expectation(s)

     The pattern begins (relatively) precise and symmetrical, or in other words, it begins beautifully.  If you look carefully though, you'll notice very quickly that as the patten extends past the flowery image in the middle, the lines begin to distort.  Notice how the bottom two arching shapes are much larger and fuller than the condensed arches at the top of the design in the second, more detailed photo.  As the pattern expands out across the page, these minor initial flaws are developed into wild variances (see top photo.)  The final image is no longer precise or symmetrical.  It's unbalanced, out of control: it has failed to meet the expectations set in place by the first design in the center.  

     This drawing was inspired by the ways in which we seem to follow the same patterns, often to our own destruction.  We may have an idea, hope, or expectation that seems great.  Maybe it is.  But as time goes by, and we pursue the idea past its pure essence, this core, center concept gets warped.  I see this everywhere at the cafe: patterns of individuals making bad choices that are themselves patterns passed down from their family and their family's family before them.  Patterns of the city discontinuing vital services, sending people into the streets, only to be forced years later to reopen them as the "homelessness problem" gets worse and worse.  Patterns of finding hope in some sort of program, some relationship, some medication, only to have that program, relationship or medication not fulfill its expectations as time wears on.  Where are our patterns leading us?  What breaks patterns?  Do we even want our patterns broken?  Without them, what could we expect out of life?