4:43 PM: so this is how far i got with portrait #12 of 18 before leaving my studio at 3 to take a walk with mikela. think again! too cold to walk today. sure we could do it, but walking for an hour in 17 F temperatures is a struggle.
this is mark gerzon, author, leadership expert, and veteran convener of cross-party conversations. i wasn't satisfied with the online still shots i found of him, so i used an image form a video of one of his talks. i'll complete it tomorrow morning & move on to portrait #13.
1:58 PM: the completed drawing of betsy ray:
12:27 PM: just started portrait # 11 of 16 TEDX speakers at the january 6 TEDX VAIL. it is of betsy ray, an activist who wants to change the world's perceptions about diabetes. Here's the initial sketch; i'm about to add color.
LOOKING BACK:
in 2010, having visited my son & grandkids on andros, in greece, upon our return i made a series of paintings. this one was drawn from photographs i had taken that summer on andros, at a beach called piso yialia. "piso" means back or behind; yialia is a beach just off the road running along the bay beneath the capitol of chora. piso yialia is not on a road, so you hike over a little hill to get there. like most great beaches, it used to be almost completely deserted, with goats grazing on the steep hillside. now you can't go to yialia without being acoustically attacked by loud music blaring over loudspeakers and being met with a row of beach umbrellas neatly lined up. in other words, they fucked it up.
i made many paintings of piso yialia, and recently discovered a photo of an extended family from the village of stenies, just behind piso yialia. they had come down together for a day at the beach. they lay sprawled beneath a makeshift striped canvas shelter supported by 4 oars. food and drink was plentiful. some were dressed, other wore their bathing suits. they were the only ones on the beautiful beach, and behind them one could see the characteristic yialia rocks, forming a protective natural barrier. piso yialia was, at that time, during the '70's, so close to the bustle of civilization, and yet one felt transported to a place beyond time and space; dreamtime.