books and more books

I’ve been reading, or rather devouring books since I was probably 11. I found it really hard to read post surgery but I have been doing it again recently. The Wind Up Bird Chronicle, The Curious Incident of a Dog in the Night-time and Blue Angel, which I am currently reading. I just decided to pick them up again last week. Not since I have lived in Jersey City has reading been so convenient. There you could sit your ass right on the floor of the path train and start reading. And given there was a good fifteen minutes traveling between stations and under the water, combined with the fact that I read really very fast, I could finish a book a week just riding the trains for four days…obviously this was the subway too, given I don’t read 60 page books, but you understand what I am saying.

I remember there were times when I had decided I would start carrying around my sketch pad and start drawing people on the trains. I get really into footwear, maybe because I am looking down and quite adept at reproducing shoes. And the lines in people’s faces. I really thought it would be good to take the Staten Island Ferry and do that. But somewhere along the line I thought it was too invasive to be doing that, as I have found myself sitting on the train in the artist’s line of vision. I always try and remember the lines on people’s faces though. I am better reproducing people’s faces than say, animals. When I was younger I was better at the opposite, at least I thought. I sometimes annoy myself when I realize how wasted these talents are if I don’t use them and practice them. With drawing, it’s like riding a bike, you never forget how to see and reproduce. I don’t enjoy a lot of super abstract art for its aesthetic because of this. I prefer things based in organic life. Hence I don’t like cubism. But I especially hate pop art. For me, art should have meaning. I do appreciate Andy Warhol as a great business mind and master marketer, much as I can appreciate Brian Warner, aka Marilyn Manson for it…but, the process at least. Should have feeling I think.

Which brings me to my own painting. We have this back porch area. Where I could set up some oils on a nice day. And paint. And I will. I have been in this apartment feeling guilty for my freedoms lately, spending all of my free time cleaning and organizing so I won’t feel bad for the amount of work everyone else seems to do around me.

Oils. I have tubes and tubes of oils given to me. I have experimented three times. Mostly I am an acrylic and watercolor girl. But with this…it’s like watercolors that don’t bleed, painting with oils.

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