Fever Dream part 5

 

Today was a nice day to be outside.  Low 70's, low humidity, light breeze.  Especially after last night, which included the remnants of Hurricane Ida passing through the state on its way from Louisiana.  Some parts of the state saw huge floods as rivers overflowed, and those haven't finished cresting yet, so some of those floods will be worse.  (If I was still working at Kean and on Thursdays, I would have had to deal with flooding on the GSP and much of Union, but I don't work there anymore.)  We got all the same warnings here, but the worst of the storm passed to the west, giving us only a few inches, and winds not unusual for around here.  And no matter what part of the state, it was all out to sea by this morning and the sun came out.

I had to wait a while for my parents to end all their adventures, so I couldn't really leave until almost 3 pm.   But I did want to get out of the house and get some work done.  I had packed my backpack with all I needed, and took off when I could.  I saw Nichole's car in the lot, but we had taken care of business earlier in the week, so I got right to my task.  

Yesterday I had spent some time sketching circular clothing racks of the type seen in department stores, including how the clothes hang.  My block had one roughed in, so today I wanted to improve that.  However, I never bothered to take out my sketchbook with these sketches, but just redrew it based on my memories of what I had studied.  For everything else, I didn't have sketches already, but just cleaned up my drawings based on my abilities to draw things, one of the perks of being an artist.  So I used perspective and a ruler to put in a tile floor, an aisle end Entemann's display (dream objects), a large escalator (dream), and a rider (art abilities) turned to check out the deep background- a Disney castle burning (dream).   Still has a ways to go, but it's starting to come together.  

Just a short visit today, so I had brought the smaller jazz/blues collection.  And knowing I had only a short time to be in the Studio today, I went with a single album disc, my home burned copy of Gil Scott-Heron's The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, an early 70's collection mostly made from his first few albums, which were his most successful anyway.  Scott-Heron was an unusual case, mostly backed by a jazz combo, over which he sometimes sang, and sometimes spoke, making him one of first rappers in recorded history.  Many of his songs were about the problems of life in the ghetto, and the dangers of drug use, but this didn't stop him from eventually becoming a drug addict.  I remember a tv show and a discussion about his being open about having become a crack addict, albeit a functioning one, as his income from music made it possible to get the drugs he needed without a life of crime to support it, in some ways like Townes Van Zandt, whose income from past recordings and song writing was just enough to keep him in alcohol and drugs he needed.  Both musicians/song writers eventually succumbed to their addictions, as they always do, but until then I guess they lived the lives they wanted to.   That was the point of the Scott-Heron discussion- if he could support his drug habit without crime, was it a bad thing, or just the way he worked and lived?  I don't know if a conclusion was reached.