My uncomfortable relationship with art

I... want to go running again. Not like, "I should probably go out and run." No, it's more, "I really want to go outside and run. Like, right now."

Damn you, Hansen!

Thank you,
josh bxxxx

It's a sickness.

Kathleen Rooney was featured on Talk of the Nation sometime in the past year, that is when I first heard of her book, Live Nude Girl. I want to go back and listen to that entire interview, I was in and out of the car, visiting actor-teachers around town.

Her book re-entered my memory recently when I was googling a painter who has been work with Leah as a model. He took the time to give it a write-up on amazon or somewhere, and I finally did what I must do in order to get my hands on anything, I put it on my queue at the library. As my car has been in the shop for around a week, I have been on the bus a lot. I really like the bus, because when I am on the bus, I read books. I read books on the bus, and sitting in the kids' room, waiting for them to fall asleep.

I was nervous about reading this book, a memoir of her experiences working as a model, clothed and unclothed, for life drawing classes, sketching collectives, and private gigs. Which character in her story was going to most resemble me? Because there has to be one.

I don't like having hobbies. But I am resigned to drawing being my hobby. Running is my exercise, theater is my work. Drawing is something I do that makes me happy, which otherwise serves no practical purpose. Something I spend time and money on and it doesn't go anywhere, because I don't have the wherewithal to actually be very good.

It was a thrill this summer, actually, to play a character in a play who really is a professional artist. I felt sheepish when people asked how they could get a copy of my graphic novel I HATE THIS and I had to tell them I'm not actually an artist - I just played one on stage.

I played Manet on stage once, too, you know, in a play Sarah wrote. It consumed a year of my life. My year as a French pre-Impressionist painter.

When my wife gave me a gift certificate to an arts supply store in 2001 - the year Calvin was born - I went out and bought some supplies. And was afraid to use them. Eventually I asked a friend or two to sit and they did and that was very nice and they looked like cartoons and then I put them away for a few years.

In early 2007, when the marathon was over and I had not been running in some time and my job had gotten routine and I was trying to figure out what exactly it was I wanted to do with the rest of my life (my thirties coming to a swift conclusion) I asked a friend to take her clothes off for me, and she said yes, and suddenly I was drawing again.

I had drawn nudes before, going back to when I was a teenager. I destroyed those, afraid someone would find them, which is really a shame when you think about it because I think they may have been good. In any case, tear up a photograph sure, but not something you drew with your own hands.

Back then, all of my nudes were of girlfriends so the idea of doing that was tinged with sexual or romantic ideas and for a long time it was difficult to draw someone I was friends with with their clothes on without my head getting all creepy.

So I just leapt over that neuroses by asking a string of good friends to posed nude and now I have a notebook of acceptable amateur drawings. So. Good for me. I can still draw. I draw better. I am happy with my work.

Now, how this all relates to Rooney's book. Before asking good friends to disrobe and sit still for me for two hours, I did some research on how to best take care of them. It was February when I embarked, I made sure there was heat. A private place to change, a robe, clean floors. "Playing professional," as Leah once put it. Thanks, thank you for that.

So I was searching in the book for a reflection of the talentless, 40-ish dilettante who asks young women to get naked for him. And while I found a few creepers in her work, they weren't me. As with everything else I am struggling to create there is a great deal of shyness, boldness, risk-taking and harboring in dull safety. The one person she zeroes in on as someone she just doesn't respect is a guy who has artistic pretensions, but no skill. Or no style. Or no class. Or too much money for her taste.

Well, I am pretentious about a lot of things, but my drawing is certainly not one of them.

Like most non-fiction I read - and that is what I largely choose to read - I was delighted to come away feeling like I had learned something the easy way. Something I was interested in, a shallow education in art history and stories about interesting people. I am still not sure I know anything at all about her ... and as the model, maybe that was the point.

Early in the book, she describes the difference between naked and nude. Nude is, however it looks, beautiful and artistic. It is apart from whatever it is about the human mind that makes the unclothed body something "bad." Dirty. Weak.

Naked is exposed. And maybe that's why I would never post or display my drawings. Because that's me naked. And I do not like to be naked.

It's all one.

I was flying solo this weekend - as a parent, not entirely solo. The wife was taking in a preeclampsia event in Chicago (in addition to the Institute and some theater) while I took the kids to two soccer games, three birthday parties and a circus.

I'm not complaining, we had a great time. Oh, and I was there when Josh ran his first 5K.

However, I have SO MUCH GOING ON - turning in my first draft of this season's outreach tour, interviews for a brief piece I am writing for Cleveland Magazine, there are two grants due by the end of the week, two more in the middle of next month and three more after that. There are actors to supervise and a car with a major repair bill hanging over it. Sunday night, and with all this hanging over me I was jittery, irritable and in desperate need of a run.

Running is breath and blood and life. God, it felt good - bless you, Josh, I needed speed and yesterday did not cut it as my weekly (weekly?) three-miler.

I have been reading Kathleen Rooney's book about modeling (review to come, I am sure) and that in addition to some other developments have had me scribbling all weekend, after the kids go to sleep. Running, writing, drawing. All one. All life. All as necessary as caffeine and pain medication.

Podrunner: 142 BPM - A Positive Spin

Distance: 3.25 miles
Temperature: 54º
Weather: coolee-cool

Weakly

Weekly it is, weekly it must be. I am fatigued, I yearn for sleep every day, my arms have begun to ache when called for exertion. Not kidding, this is how inactive I am when I do not run.

Having said that, it has been an awesome weekend. I have become wildly motivated, and did an awful lot of housecleaning, rearranging - and instead of wasting time on the Internet, I have placed my sketching materials at arm's reach. When my mind is wandering, I pick up the book and go at it, and then return to useful work.

One major event lately has been the writing of a new script, which you can check up on by visiting my new/old blog. I had one for my play THE VAMPYRES, which fell into disuse when that show closed. As the new play is on a similar topic, I just picked up where I left off.

PODRUNNER: LATEST MIX: 172 BPM - “HEAVEN'S GAIT”

The plan, if there were a plan, was the go through all the PODRUNNER mixes starting from the beginning. I think this was just because I was a fan from the beginning, and needed an excuse to listen to the first mixes. However, at the rate of one run per week, I have been daunted by the idea of ever catching up, and I wanted to hear what they sound like today. Today I used the latest mix, which you can download by clicking on the mix title above.

Distance: 3.25 miles
Temperature: 45º
Weather: brisk ... yet sweaty.

Remarkable

Friend Tim P. is running the Twin Cities Marathon as we speak. At the halfway point he was keeping a 12 min. mile - very respectable. I could stay in no longer, I needed to get out.

Slight cramp in my right knee partway through, walked for a bit, kept on. Twice a week? Can we shoot for three?

Had an epiphany right at the start, it made my day. That's for all you writers out there, I ran. I wrote, in my head. I will have half a first-draft in good stead in two hours.

How did we spend the morning? Winterizing the house, ending summer, playing. Later I will sketch. This wasn't supposed to be a remarkable day, suddenly it is.

Listening to: PODRUNNER Classic - Surge (144 BPM)

Distance: 3.25 miles
Temperature: 55º
Weather: cool, awesome.
Weight: 157 lbs.

UPDATE: Josh pointed out the last sentence of the first paragraph is misleading. He thinks I actually ran the Twin Cities Marathon with Tim - and that I dropped out halfway through. What I meant was, "Tim's effort has impressed me on this cold fall afternoon - I could no longer stay indoors, I needed to get out onto the streets of Cleveland Heights myself."

What I blah blah blah

I do not read enough. I think I read more than the average American, but I read far less than Americans who read.

When vacationing in Maine, I read a book, at least one book. That happens. I can remember titles, and when i remember titles, I usually remember years, and then I remember other things, that have nothing to do with the book, but were then tied with the book.

I read when sitting in the kids' room as they doze off to sleep. I have been reading the Schulz biography for months. A few pages at a time. This is not a good way to read,and its not that it is an uninteresting book, actually the opposite. If I say I have not had time recently, that would be almost true. What I mean is, I do not have the focus or concentration to dedicate to a book, I need those for something else.

Which is not how it is supposed to work, focusing on reading should help me focus on other things. But I am easily distracted. It's all the high fructose corn syrup.

I have returned to What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, which I never really started when I received it during the holidays. I will strive to give that a half-hour a night. If I could work in fifteen minutes of doodling a night, I might be onto something.

Write for an hour in the morning, relax with reading and drawing in the evening. Nice.

Now excuse me, I have to take a run.

Listening to: PODRUNNER Classic - Exultant (152 BPM)

Hey, cool. That one had a piece of Sydney by G&D in it. Knew I'd find them if I went back far enough.

And hey, something I'd forgetten ... Podrunner lets me think! Music with lyrics makes me concentrate on the lyrics! Man, how dumb is it I never figured that out before?

Geez, what a beautiful day.

Am I schizophrenic in here, or is it just us?

Distance: 3.25 miles
Temperature: 67º
Weather: warm & bright
Weight: 155 lbs.

Night moves

Moving into tech week, for any production, can be physically testing. But when you are working on your fourth consecutive day in sub-freezing temperatures, with your kids at home because they are either sick or their schools are closed – and your wife’s car won’t start because like so many of us, it doesn’t like to freeze …

Well. Last night was not the night I would have chosen to meet Josh and Cat at 10.30 pm for some work on the show. But I did. And here’s the why:

Pengo is an illustrator and cartoonist, that’s his employment (not mine, not this Pengo, the Pengo in the play.) In the scene You Got Me Sprung (2003) he invites a young woman he knows to model for him. What follows is a stream-of-consciousness monologue while Pengo sketches. What he is sketching will appear on a projection screen behind him.

Last Sunday, when I was out of town, Josh and Cat got together for a trial run. It was an experiment for all of us, and Josh posted the video for me to see while I was still in VT. Now granted, the resolution from the YouTube image and my wife’s laptop combined made for a less-than-impressive image. However, I was concerned about a couple of things, including the camera being hand-held, and Cat’s use of light pencils.

Don’t get me wrong, what Cat drew was beautiful, but between the whiteness of the paper and the brightness of the lights and the cruel nature of video, it just didn’t come through well.

Josh was trying to do close-ups, and emphasize detail … but what I wanted was the time it takes for the entire sketch to be drawn to be condensed to 1 min. 45 sec. – the time it takes for me to say the monologue. And so the camera was just moving all over the place, like a fly trying to land.

Using a tripod, we will (hopefully) have a static view of the pad, and the image will come into view, with Cat’s hand flying all over the place so fast you don’t really see it – just the picture. That is the plan.

Now, Cat usually uses a mechanical pencil, and for this run I asked her to use a wooden pencil, a softer, darker pencil. She was game, though she made several remarks about how odd it felt and that she was more comfortable with her own pencils. The first two renderings she made she was not happy with.

However, that changed. Her third rendering was quite striking, but even then she pressed on to make a fourth. And that one, I believe, is our keeper. I am glad she stuck with the softer pencils, and I am looking forward to how they turn out on video.

Got to bed at 1.00 am. But it was worth it.

That Darn Cat!

Memo to myself ... start and finish at the rec center, not the other way around. The wind is always blowing north and east with the river.

Distance: 4.25 miles
Temperature: 66 degrees. It's gorgeous!

Fabulous day on South Green ... breezy and bright and warm. It's usually January when we get one (just one) of these freaky 70-ish degree days before slamming back into the deep freeze. But here we are. Anything can happen in Athens.

Second Christmas, lots of Bailey's spilled into morning coffee and lucky, lucky children getting a second helping of too many great presents. We are fortunate, indeed.

Best of 2008 Playlist
Lights & Music - Cut Copy
Let's Dance to Joy Division - The Wombats
Mansard Roof - Vampire Weekend
Don't Stop The Music - Rihanna
Black & Gold - Sam Sparro
Mercy - Duffy
2007, The Year Punk Rock Broke My Heart - Los Campesinos!
Check Yes Juliet - We The Kings
1,000,000 - Nine Inch Nails
Uninvited - Freemasons
Driving This Road Until Death Sets You Free - Zombie-Zombie
Cooldown: Blind - Hercules and Love Affair

Cat worries that she is not good enough an artist, but I feel so intensely grateful to have her as part of this project. She is a better artist than I am, don't let her fool you, and has a greater range of styles and influences. That's why she's doing this.

And what is she doing, exactly? She is the Hand of Pengo® acting as the cartoonist and illustrator I never was, the main character of this play.

So ... if this is an autobiographic solo performance, why are you not an actor? Because this is a play, silly, and my work is self-referential and navel-gazing as it is without making a number of pithy theater references. I did enough of that in Vampyres, God knows.

I needed someone who could represent my work as a high school newspaper cartoonist, and one in college, writing for a weekly alternative paper, a graphic novelist, a designer of greeting cards. I can't do all of that. And even if I could, some of what I share in this piece is difficult enough without anyone judging my drawing abilities.

I received a copy of Art Spiegelman's Breakdowns for Christmas. I love his work, but I found this one to be less than the others. It is half memoir and half reprints of work from the early 70s. I can't tell if it's a memoir padded out with old stuff or he wanted to share his less-known work and needed to ad an extended introduction to justify peddling reprints. He is without a doubt a master draftsman, but emotionally he goes over a lot of the same ground covered in many previous books, especially MAUS.

However, reading it reminded me of where I came from, and how I justified creating &TYD. The canon of autobiographic-graphic novels is becoming quite extensive, and those which shine are making it a lot more difficult for those who do not. The work of Harvey Pekar has been a great influence on me since I first began reading American Splendor in the late 80s.

Last year Leah gave my wife a copy of Alison Bechdel's Fun Home and me Peter Kuper's Stop Forgetting to Remember. The former is about the author's relationship with her closeted father and his possible suicide. The latter about the author's own anxieties about his penis, being a cartoonist, impending fatherhood and (I'm not kidding) September 11th.

I will let you guess which one I admired more. Let me give you a hint - the one is an outstanding piece of writing, illustration and pathos that I read in passive fascination until the final page, when I suddenly found myself weeping uncontrollably. The other I hope and pray to God is not how my own work comes off to friends or strangers.

And so; it is because I am presenting a play that I chose to make the main character a cartoonist. If I am really as good a graphic artist as Cat has suggested, then I will someday create a graphic novel about being an actor.

And here's your Saturday evening wake-up call:

Love's Not For Me

Pengo's Priorities

1. Family
2. Work
3. Household business
4. Running
5. Writing
6. Sketching

Writing should come before running, but I actually run more often than I write. My artistic pursuits fall behind my work and family, and I have to run because I have to run. If I do not run, I will die.

This makes weekends very difficult. I want to, need to spend as much time with the kids as possible, to make up for my time at work during the week - like everyone else. I try and squeeze in housework and maintenance between and through time with children - like everyone else. And running is time I can easily justify for myself. If I do not run, I will die.

So how can I take time to write or (gasp) draw? Well. I do not know about any other weekend, but this has been a good one. In spite of, or because of, a lot of outside activities - end-of-season soccer games, trips to alpaca farms - I have either been the recipient of watching-the-boy-sleep time or stay-home-and-work-on-the-big-presentation time.

The first gave me time to sketch yesterday, alone, for well over an hour, and then write for another hour. And today, after a week off the road, I stayed home from the alpaca farm (yes) to finish the presentation, and then reward myself with a run in great, bright, sweaty late-spring weather.

Good times, good times.

1980 Playlist
I'm Alright - Kenny Loggins
Can You Feel It? - The Jacksons
Coming Up - Paul McCartney
Only A Lad - Oingo Boingo
Turning Japanese - The Vapors
Funkytown - Lipps Inc.
Kit Mambo - Graham Gouldman
She's Lost Control - Joy Division
He Can't Love You Like I Love You - Michael Stanley Band
Let My Love Open The Door - Pete Townshend
Canary In A Coalmine - The Police
Crosseyed and Painless - Talking Heads
Warmdown Lap:With You I Can Run Forever - Graham Gouldman

(Last Year's 1980 Playlist)
Antmusic - Adam and the Ants
Ah! Leah! - Donnie Iris
Call Me - Blondie
Enola Gay - Orchestral Manoevres in the Dark
Driven to Tears - The Police
Transmission - Joy Division
Pretty Boys - Joe Jackson
Take This Town - XTC
Play For Today - The Cure

Run stats:
Distance: 5.7 miles
Weight: 167 lbs.
Temperature: 62º
Weather: sunny & Warm

I tried and I failed to teach you.

Daddy gets about ninety minutes of alone time on Saturday mornings while mom and the kids go to their music classes. I could have pushed it out to 5 miles or so, but that's all the time I get and there's preening to do. It's not easy to keep this shorn look alive. One day too many and I start looking shaggy.

Beautiful end to a difficult week last night. C. came over for a session of sketching, then she, mom and the kids contributed on making handrolled tortellini while I cleaned up - and there was "witch" cake as a surprise. Later I went with E. downtown to "celebrate" the 15th anniversary of the weekend we started our first theater company.

Fifteen years. Jesus. There was much drinking.

UPDATE: Following my shower I "shaved" the callouses that have built over the mosaic ... only they aren't so much callouses anymore, some have become scabs. There is actual bleeding, which I have been careful to avoid. I applied the Formalaz anyhow, which, as you might have imagined, felt like pouring formaldehyde into an open wound. "Felt like," because that is what I was doing.

The pain affects my entire foot. My toes instinctively curl in reaction to the pain, which affects the muscles in my entire foot. I limp. It takes a while for the pain to subside. It still really hasn't, some three hours later.

Stats:
Distance: 3.25 miles
Weight: 168.5 lbs.
Stretches: yes
Breakfast: eggs, beans & toast
Drink: Accelerade
Start Time: 10.30 am
Temperature: 57º
Weather: bright & windy

Playlist:
Sydney/Dangerous Power/Tracking Treasure Down - Gabriel & Dresden
Synchronize - Tomboy
A Tab for the Holiday - Lilys