I have been continuing to scan my sketchbooks. Each sketchbook has a unique focus due to its own properties of size, paper quality, etc. It also has to do with what I was doing at the time. This sketchbook has a lot of live drawings of people in public settings. I was spending time in coffee houses because I was live streaming regularly on the Periscope app and this was a fun and interesting way to engage my audience. The camera would be pointed at me and my drawing so I could talk while they saw my drawing appear. I would sometimes end the video with me going over the meet the subject of my drawing and introduce them as well.
These are a selection from my 2015-2017 sketchbook.
These are available for purchase as NFTs (nonfungible tokens) or as prints. Message me on instagram or FB (thenapkindad) or email me @ marty@martycoleman.com
In September of 2018 I went to Erie, Pennsylvania to run the Erie Marathon. It was my final effort to qualify for the 2019 Boston Marathon before the registration deadline the very next day. We had to take a short bus ride from a giant parking lot to the small start area in a nature preserve. While on the bus I met sisters Katie and Emily Funk who had flown in from out of town like I had to run the race. We had a good, if brief, conversation before we arrived at the start area and went on our way. We traded names and promised to connect on social media to see how we all did.
Katie and Emily Funk after the Erie Marathon, Sept. 9th, 2018
After the race we did indeed connect on Social Media. All 3 of us had qualified for Boston at the race and were making plans to connect again in Boston come April. However, one of the quirks of the Boston Marathon is that you can qualify and still not make it in and that is what happened to me. I missed out by 16 seconds. But the sisters made it in with time to spare and fulfilled their dream by running in the 2019 race.
Emily and Katie
Sisters, Sisters
You can see two things by the t-shirt Emily is wearing. One, they live in the neighboring states and two, they love each other a great deal and cherish the times they can get together. This was often when they were running marathons around the country together, always with the hope of qualifying for Boston.
Emily and Katie with the father, Charlie Funk, after the race
Not only are the two of them runners but so is their dad and a third sister, Jennie. Charlie Funk got the idea he wanted to run Boston when Emily went off to Boston College and he got hooked on the idea of running past BC at mile 21. He made it happen in 2008 (and 3 more years). Jennie has run Boston as well. Ever since then they have been a running family.
Painting the Relationship and the goal
Late in 2020 I got an unexpected message from Emily. She told me that they had tried for years to qualify, running 4 marathons together, each time coming up short until finally at Erie they made it happen. And now she wanted to give Katie something that would be a memento, not just of Boston, but of the entire journey they have been on together. So she contacted me hoping I might be available to create something. She sent me some photos of them together and some in action during races. She also sent me pics of the 5 medals representing the 5 races they had run.
After doing a lot of collaging and editing of the various photos I came up with an idea and executed it. I wanted to include the two of them, the 5 medals and the ribbons that held the medals. Here is the final result.
I sent it off to Emily in time for her to present it to Katie when they got together sometime after Christmas. She sent me a pic of them holding it along with all the medals. It made me feel great to have been asked and to be able to produce something that represented their love and their journey.
In the book ‘1984’ there were official sayings of the party in control, inscribed on the giant white pyramid at the Ministry of Truth. war is peace freedom is slavery ignorance is strength
This has always been used as an example of a scary dystopian future we in America might see in a place like Russia or China. But that is not how it’s turned out. Instead we are seeing it play out here in the US under Trump. If you doubt this to be true I would submit the words above as just the merest of slices of what he has said that is absurd and untrue in the extreme.
All you have to do is look through a collection of what he’s said over the past 4 years or more to see the truth. If you don’t see it, I think you might work for the ‘Ministry of Truth’.
She wanted to go to the Forum where she could show off her new hairdo and earrings and watch wrestling and talk and eat and flirt and listen to people say profound things and maybe get a mani/pedi. She would see her friends and have fun, laughing and enjoying the day.
She didn’t want to walk all the way up the hill and look at disgusting dead people on crucifixes all by herself. It was hot and her feet would get dirty and there would be flies and vermin and the smell would be aweful. Plus, people might see her up there and think she is somehow connected to those dead people and then people would start talking and not want to be around her.
She stood there a long time before she made her choice.
I think this might make an interesting T-shirt for a lot of interesting women. They are busy with their interesting lives, doing interesting things and aren’t interested in men being interested in them just because they look interesting.
She was nervous singing in front of the congregation because she didn’t like her shape. Her hips were too small and her shoulders and chest were too big. Her knees were too knobby and her feet were too small. Her hands were too manly and her lips were too thin. She knew everyone was looking at her shape and judging it. She knew they thought she had a terrible shape and were laughing at her.
But she went out and sang anyway because she loved the song and thought it was such a good message about letting God shape you instead of being shaped by something or someone else. She had been liberated when she first realized she wasn’t a slave to culture or society or anything else. She could choose to be shaped by something greater than those things. It had transformed her life.
When she got off stage and the service was over she went to the furniture store to buy a new coffee table. She didn’t like the one she had because it was an odd shape. It was square and didn’t fit well in her living room. When she went in the furniture store a nice lady came up and asked her if she could help her find something. The lady had a very nice shape to her face, sort of heart shaped with a pointed chin and bee sting lips, which she always thought were the perfect shape for lips. She wished for years she had lips shaped like that and would have gotten lip injections to make hers that shape if she could afford it. She wondered if lips shaped like that were nice to kiss and thought if she was a man she would want to kiss lips like that. She bought a table that had a nice shape and was very happy.
When she was done at the furniture store she went to the gym to get in shape. She was out of shape since her family had got all bent out of shape about something or other, she forgot what. But now it was a new year and she was going to get in shape. When she got dressed into her workout clothes she noticed all the women who were in shape. They were in better shape than she was and it bummed her out. She wanted to be in shape like they were. She decided to do a weight lifting class because she heard it got you in shape really fast. It was very hard because she was so out of shape but she did it anyway. The women in the shower in the locker room after the workout were all in good shape. One of them who had been in the class with her said, ‘You did good today. Don’t worry you will be in great shape before you know it.’ That made her feel good and bad. Good because she was noticed, bad because she was noticed because she wasn’t in good shape.
As she drove home she came upon a car accident. It looked like the car had hit a guard rail, that was all crumpled and out of shape, and then a light pole that was also out of shape. She stopped her car and immediately called 911 and told them where she was and told the dispatcher the car was in really bad shape. She ran up to the car and saw someone in the front seat. It was the furniture lady and she was in bad shape. She was bleeding from a ragged shaped cut on her forehead, her lip was cut wide open and her arm was shaped funny, like it had been broken. She was able to pull the door open after three really strong pulls and got the furniture lady out and moved her off the road into the grass. She ran back to her car and grabbed her first aid kit from her trunk and found a perfectly shaped piece of gauze to cover her cut. She found another, smaller piece, that was just the right shape to cover her lip but still allow her to breathe. She laid her down in her lap and talked to her, telling her she was going to be ok and would be back in tip top shape in no time.
The ambulance came in just a few minutes and took over. The medical people got her in the best shape they could to transport her and then they were all gone. She went home and collapsed on her couch and fell asleep in an odd shape and woke up 10 hours later with a crick in her neck.
Well, this isn’t quite true. A herd can make a heck of a lot of noise. But the point is that the individual can’t be heard apart from the herd.
So, if you feel you have a voice that should be heard all by itself then you need to separate from the herd in one way or the other. Some people think what that means is you have to have a superior voice (or some other talent) But it really doesn’t really mean that.
You can have quite an average voice (look at so many rock stars if you have any doubt) but have unique things to say that make you stand out. You can work harder than others to develop that voice or you can be better at finding the audience that wants and needs to hear it. In other words, standing out is, more than anything else, a result of a decision that you want to.
That can come from a number of things, some good, some bad. Perhaps you want adulation and fame and drive yourself to achieve that. You could very well get those things if you drive hard enough. But then what? Was that ultimately satisfying? Most famous people I have read about and most famous people I know (local celebrities of one sort or another, not really FAMOUS people) have given me the impression that being famous isn’t all that great in and of itself.
What word do we so often see alongside fame? Fortune. And for some the drive to stand out is based on wanting not fame but fortune. It’s all about the money. I get that. Money, especially if you have don’t have enough, is a compelling reason to do whatever it takes to stand out so money comes in. It is true that in most areas of sports and entertainment fame is often a precursor to having more money. And obviously money isn’t a bad thing to have in and of itself.
But once again, my experience having been raised in a very wealthy community and then having very little money, there really is not a huge difference in well-being or happiness between the two. Yes the big CEO might be well-known around the world, but that doesn’t mean he or his family isn’t wracked by alcoholism or domestic abuse or some other terrible issue that he or she tries to keep hidden. It’s not the part of their ‘voice’ that they want to be known for.
In my thinking the better and more sustainable sort of desire to stand out is based on feeling you have something of value to give the world, something that the world can benefit from. Fame and/or fortune might come along with that, no doubt. Nothing wrong with either. But neither one is the number one goal, making a positive contribution to the world is.
If you are driven to have your voice, or your art, science, music, engineering, writing, dance, humor, insight, athletics, or any other area of human endeavor stand out because of that, then you can sustain it and enjoy it for your entire life. And who knows, maybe you will get your name in lights and make a few bucks as well!
I heard the quote while watching the TV show, Survivor this season. The person who spoke it was Noura, one of the finalists of season 39. I do not know if she is the originator of the quote.
Her walk home that morning allowed for thoughts on what had just happened. She wanted to believe she was free but her behavior told her she was not. However, she also believed she could change and be free in the future.
I always thought there was a certain ethical and moral line that most politicians (of any party) would not cross in their pursuit of political power, money or fame. I really did assume that…until Trump came along.
But now I know better. Nothing in my 50+ years of following politics has astounded me quite as much as the Republican party’s acquiescence to the cult of Trump. And what can explain it? Competing bodies of evidence? No. The evidence is clear for all to see. It’s in broad daylight, spoken by the President himself and by his Chief of Staff. It’s in every single witness in both the Mueller Report and the Impeachment inquiry. It’s in the entire public history of Trump’s untruthful proclamations for the last 4 years, since he announced his run for office. Those who doubt this are living in denial.
I have come to the conclusion that there is only one explanation. The Republicans in power are fearful cowards. They fear losing elections, power, money, status. They fear tweets from an angry orange man. They know that if they stand up and say the truth, that Trump is a criminal and has taken impeachable actions, they will have people mad at them. That they will be ostracized from the club. They will lose speaking fees and appointments in the future. It will be like leaving the church they grew up in, excommunicated and shunned forever more.
And that is all true. It will take courage and it will have consequences. But that doesn’t matter. Their first and foremost obligation is to the country, period. If they lose an election, it’s still worth it. If they don’t get that plum lobbying job after congress, it’s still worth it. If they don’t get huge speaking fees or a gig on Fox News, it’s still worth it. And at every step along the way it will, more than anything else, be THE RIGHT THING TO DO.
Our country matters much more than a lucrative gig at Fox or a plaque on a wall at the state house.
There is a question that recurs again and again among us. Do people ever change? We state it that simply because it’s easily understood what it is about. It isn’t about if we change physically since we all know we do. It’s about whether our character and personality change. Will a high-energy, type A personality become a mellow, laid back slacker? Will an amoral criminal ever straighten up and become a fine, upstanding citizen? Will a cheater always remain a cheater?
As a person in the middle of his 7th decade I can tell you with absolute confidence from my personal experience that the answer is without reservation a resounding ‘YES…sorta, kinda, probably, possibly, maybe’.
I know, overwhelming in its decisiveness, right? Well, that’s the rub. I have changed dramatically in my understanding and my responses to all sorts of things. All I have to do is compare my relationship to my two wives. I was married to my first wife when I was 24. We divorced when I was 45. I married my second (and current) wife when I was 51. I am now 64.
I believe I am a much better husband to Linda than I was to Kathy. The reason is I changed. The experience of seeing Kathy so unhappy in our marriage and realizing how much of that was my fault changed me. As did the actual divorce and single life that followed.
When I married Linda I took my vows much more seriously. And by vows I don’t just mean sexual purity, I mean the whole idea of vowing to put her as #1 in my life. Part of this change was self-preservation. I didn’t ever want to behave so as to go through what I had gone through with Kathy again. But more of the change was my paying attention to what is right and wrong regardless of whether Linda or anyone else found out about it. I grew up a bit. I changed. I didn’t transform from a caterpillar to a butterfly, but I did become a better caterpillar. Not a perfect one, just better.
So, if you are wondering about this; whether you, or someone you know, can ever change. I say yes. That doesn’t mean it will happen, just that it can and does happen.
“Christianity might be a good thing if anyone ever tried it.”
Do you believe this quote? I am not sure if I do or not. Sometimes I look at the church and it’s a dismal failure in every way imaginable. Then I look at that same church and I see action that proves it is living out the creed.
I guess that is the sad reality of Christianity (and most religions if one is honest). We have ideals and we want to live up to them but we like talking about them more than we like taking the action necessary to make them real in our lives.
Spirals have taken over much of my drawing in recent months. Part 1 from a few weeks ago showed the abstract patterns I have created. Now here are the characters and portraits that have come from my spiral infatuation.
This was a quick sketch that didn’t have a defined background. I decided to work in some color well after the drawing was done and while doing so I thought it would be a challenge to see if I could make the clothing translucent. that led me into thinking of who this woman could be, what situation she could be in and I decided to put her in an intimate, personal setting thinking to herself.
‘The Weight’ pen and ink, acrylic paint on paper, 2019
Often times I don’t have the time or the position to draw the whole person. What happens is I see just one element of the person I like, in this case the high bangs, and I just work from there, making up the rest of the person and the scene out of my head.
‘In the Museum’ pen and ink on paper, 2019
When I was in college my first girlfriend had a bridge of her nose that pretty much went straight down from her forehead in a straight line with no dip below the brow. I found it very attractive, Romanesque is how I thought of it. I I can’t say she was my only inspiration but I often find myself drawing a straight line all the way down from hairline to tip of nose when making up a profile face. In this case I even went to opposite direction, making a bump where there is usually a dip.
‘Don’t Cut Me Down’ pen and ink on paper, 2019
I noticed a violin player at church wearing a Renaissance Peasant dress that stood out. I started from there and built the drawing around that image. The idea of the cut down tree has recurred in my drawings here and there over the years. The stump representing both a life cut short and a transformation of something into something else. I think of both when I see someone going through a trauma. It’s a death of sorts but it is also a rebirth into something new and unknown.
‘In The Waiting Room’ pen and ink on paper, 2019
I was waiting for an appointment to have my very sore right Achilles checked out (not the same one I had surgery on in 2016) and saw this women sitting very still opposite me. I wasn’t sure I would have enough time to get the entire scene but it was worth a shot. Turns out it took a while for either of us to be called so I was able to get the drawing done.
‘At the River’ pen and ink on paper, 2019
I was inspired by seeing a woman with hair that curved around her face but other than that this drawing is completely made up. In most of my drawings there is more room at the top and sides for a background but in this case her portrait fills the image so much that I only had a small area above and below. I thought I would try something different and not put in a horizon line and distant background like I usually do but instead draw what would be below her in the distance.
I listened to an audio book recently titled ‘All the Light We Cannot See’. It was a fantastic book about two young people during World War II. I highly recommend it.
In the book there is a good friend of one of the main characters. He is brutally beaten at one point which results in permanent brain damage. This main character visits his friend later and finds that he spends his days sitting and doing nothing but drawing spirals again and again. It was a very sad part of the book.
I thought about this idea of someone being reduced to doing the simplest of drawings and I decided I would do the same. I would start with a simple spiral and see where it led me.
While there are other shapes in some of these drawings I made a decision that spirals would be the main focus in each image or it wouldn’t be included in the series.
Most of these have been done digitally on my iPad mini but some are watercolor or marker on paper.
I drew the drawing and wrote the commentary 6 years ago today. Still true.
Vicious vs Kind
We in the western developed world are not usually reminded so viciously of death as they are where disease and war ravage nations with impunity.
We are also lucky in that birthdays are the kindest way of setting in front of us our own march to mortality, that we will die.
Depression vs Cake
Sound depressing? Yes and no. Yes, we will die and that thought can be a bummer. But then again no, because it also tells us that while we are alive we should eat the dang cake already! The cake may be a real cake, but it can also be a metaphorical cake.
Eat from life, take a hold of what you want, or stretch out your hand and reach for it until you can take hold. It won’t always be there, YOU won’t always be there. Don’t wait.
Susan seldom saw herself in this space. But between bouts of binge watching and bra burning she brought herself before the bastion of beauty. With wonder and wisdom she willingly wept at the way in which the wayward artist had winnowed down the wasteful and worthless and wicked and woeful and was left with only the worthy and wonderful and winsome. She decided to dutifully display the divine art in her dining room where her dependents would, no doubt, demand she defend her decision to ditch the dog do drivel that had been displayed before the divorce. Susan sat sassily at the Sunday soiree surrounded by so many sons and smiled and said see I shall show something satisfying to myself and you shall simply sit and suffer. The brothers busted out a big bah ha ha and then, being boys, blabbed about the ballgame.
Have you ever seen ‘The Big Lebowski’? It’s a great movie. I mention it because in it a friend, Walter (played by John Goodman), is trying to help Lebowski (also known as ‘the dude’, played by Jeff Bridges) get reimbursed for a ruined carpet (Someone peed on it). Lebowski is a very mellow dude and is trying to go about it in his own slacker way. But Walter is a hot head and is always overreacting to events. He escalates situations into some pretty extreme violence when it is utterly unnecessary. He uses a hatchet when a flyswatter was the right tool.
Jack was always tired. He never slept, burning the candle at both ends. That was a problem because it caused wax to drip everywhere and that made the partners in the law firm where he worked very angry. He got fired and spent his October either watching the baseball playoffs or sitting on the stoop outside his walkup wondering what to do. He was depressed and got lit often. It was a very scary time for him.
But eventually he died, became compost, was spread across a garden and helped grow a new batch of happy pumpkins the next year.
I draw the majority of my images from my imagination. But many of the drawings may start with something or someone I see as an inspiration point. It might be a long straight nose, or the uniformity of choir robes, that I remember and start with. But after that initial inspiration I am not trying to recreate the look of a person or place. I am then much more interested in the marks on the piece of paper and what they represent. This usually doesn’t happen with designed intent beforehand.
Where the Light Was On
For example, I didn’t start out wanting to show a woman looking off to a high rise in the distance. I started out wanting to echo the long vertical line of her nose with another long vertical line in the distance. It was after I made that second line in the distance that I started wondering what that could be. Then I started designing the scene with intent. Her look was so intensely focused off to my right that I didn’t think the high rise by itself would be a sufficient reason for her to be looking in that direction. A light on would make the difference and create the loop between the woman and the building. That in turn makes one wonder, what is happening in that building?
She Had A Little Work Done
I often start a drawing of a person with their nose. But I tend to do long noses or really big curved noses. I do this because I like making a big first mark on the page. But I got tired of doing that and was thinking about what sort of nose I could draw that I don’t often. So in the middle of the page I put the smallest nose I could. The moment I did that I thought about someone getting a nose job to reduce the size of it. The phrase ‘she had a ‘little’ work done’ came to mind. I built around that idea with other elements that were outsized instead of small, to allow for a big contrast. In the end though the drawing really wasn’t about the nose and the ‘little work’ it had done, it was about the eyes and lips and the BIG work that was done. As a matter of fact to me it looks like the only part of her that wasn’t worked on is her nose since the line is simple and uncolored. Sometimes what you think you are going to drawing isn’t what you end up really drawing.
Asparagus
I have a real penchant for art movements of Surrealism and and Dada from the early to mid twentieth century. I don’t know why but I like things that make me go ‘huh?’ and art from both those movements make me do that. In this drawing it really isn’t the image that does that, but the words. There’s no reason for them to be connected and that is the whole point. Thoughts and life don’t always make sense, but that doesn’t mean they don’t occur.
The Woman Who Drank Too Much Coffee
I showed this drawing to a friend in another country via live streaming video and she didn’t understand what all the marks were about. I explained it by telling her the title, then she understood completely!
The Choir Sings About Tools
The whole idea behind a choir (or any group in a uniform) is to present the group as being more important than the individual. It’s a powerful way to put something out into the world that wouldn’t be possible as individuals. But yet, without the individuals the group could never exist. Yes, each person here is drawn as an individual in the facial features and hair, but when it came to coloring them I decided it would be more interesting to show what was coming out of their mouths as being what made them individual, instead of their skin color.
Why the tools? Well, I couldn’t really think of a great quote or song lyric at the time and I thought icons of tools would be an interesting challenge to draw.
I Feel So City
The idea for this drawing was observing a woman reading at a coffee shop. I was barely able to get the lines of her face and body in before she left. What I was left with was someone who, without the book in the picture, looked rather depressed. I colored her in bright colors to compensate for that depressed look but still saw it. I then drew the background to match her look, not her color. Adding the word play came to mind at that point.
I spend time each evening drawing on my iPad Mini. I do this usually when I am in bed, right before I go to sleep. I don’t pre-plan what I am going to draw, I just let it happen. Here is part 4 in the series. You can see the others by selecting ‘digital work’ from the ‘series’ drop down menu.
