Society of Illustrators

I decided to take a figure drawing class while in NY...I looked online in LA and picked one at the Society of Illustrators. Had I known what I was getting into I might have felt intimidated, but ignorance, in this case, was good. 

It was on the Upper East Side, an area of the city I haven't been to in years. The first thing I noticed were all the skinny women walking skinny dogs, and doormen with white gloves.

The Society's been around since 1901. On the way up to the third floor is a pantheon of illustrators on the walls: all white men. No women, no people of color. But upstairs, a blues band was setting up, and a bar with patrons was in full bloom; and talking about bloom, I spotted the model for the evening sitting on a chair sipping her drink. Her name was Tangerine Jones. 

On the second floor, I saw this Thurber, which almost took my breath away. I associate NYC with James Thurber and there he was, a big drawing on the flimsiest of paper, illustrating for us in just a few strokes the dynamics of a family. 

New York is one big illustration, of insanity, of beauty, of ambition and greed. The poorest are laid out on the streets around Penn Station—Bombay's beggars have nothing on the wretchedness of these druggies. The wealthiest are chauffered in shiny SUVs across Park Avenue on their way to Wall Street. Then, you see all the crazies: leftover Occupiers, hanging out in Union Square, looking worse for wear; a woman running through the streets at midnight, yelling for her pimp; a toupeed man screaming on his cellphone, "What other scams can you think up to screw me, Walter?" You see it all in NY; the compactness of the city makes it possible, unlike L.A. where everything's spread out. It's right in your face— the stylish beauty, the ugly poverty, the vastness of humanity.

Some shots of the week:

 

Spring Fling

It's Spring! and time for cartoonist extraordinaire Jules Feiffer, and A Dance to Spring. 

Jules Feiffer's "Sunday Morning"
(another version)

I'm getting ready to go to New York, a trip I've taken in spring for the past three years. The realization that I'm leaving soon has manifested itself in weird dreams and mental confabulations. I feel turned upside down, rushing forward, towards what, I'm not sure. Which brings to mind this drawing by James Thurber, of a crowd stampeding through the streets of Columbus, Ohio, during the imaginary flood of 1913:

 From Thurber's, My Life and Times, "The Day the Dam Broke."

I have a special fondness for Thurber, and bring him out whenever I need a good chuckle. In a shameless copy of his style, I drew this picture many years ago, of children running in all directions, holding flashlights, looking for a wild dog named Fatima:

I bring this up because, lately, I've been thinking about the act of drawing and how a drawing can disappear into the dustbin of history, only to be found in a box hidden in the back of a closet, high on a shelf, or on an obscure website, like this one by Zuni Maud, a Yiddish illustrator, cartoonist and puppeteer. (To see his amazing puppetry and more drawings, click here.)

What possibly could the name of this drawing be? "Jews gathering moss uphill?" "Sisyphusberg?" In his subtle comic style, Maud illustrates hopeless labor, like the Sisyphus myth, something artists, cartoonists and bloggers know well. But the mere fact that one can find humor in the act of hopelessness, is in itself, not hopeless, and a trait I much admire, which brings me back to Thurber, which makes me think of Feiffer...which reminds me that it's Spring!

See you in NY!