A city reader…

Don’t pity me for my daily New Yorker commute: it is a blessing. I see people, very annoying aggressive people, and somehow I suspect this is a good thing. I am also glad for the time held hostage on an MTA car. I can’t paint, but this is the only time when I can read. So this time is sacrosanct. Without the trains and the buses, I would never read.

But there came an email. It was a one liner. It was enough to remind me of what’s been bugging me all weekend. I cling to the book, so battered from being jammed into my bag full of art supplies, so neglected while I tend to my insidious distractions that keep me from reading even on a train.

But I believe a painter will paint and a reader will read. I will find a way.

Physical books

I go to the strand to see, read, buy books, but primarily, I realized, to touch books. Since reading involves engaging and imagining, it is an activity that engages multiple senses. We see the words, the parade of ink patterns to make sense of, but also touch and smell the books in our palms. Papers of different quality, age, and material smell different. The combination of paper and ink creates variable smells, some musty, some chemical, some floral. The aesthetics of the font contributes to the overall smell of the book. Then there are the issues of the sense of touch. Does the paper feel rough, bumpy, or glossy? Is the spine hard and reliable or soft and delicate, like a baby or a lover to coax and take care of? Does the book feel docile,the kind that will obey you into your bag and get along with all the contents already there... or will it resist then dominate the ecosystem with its size and strength? Is the paper blinding white or warm yellow? Will the paper crumble in your hand or give you a paper cut? I go to the strand to touch and smell books because I love them. Perhaps I love books more than actually reading them, which became apparent when it took a while for me to realize that the Caravaggio book I was falling in love with was written in Italian. I was tempted to buy a used copy of "Art and Illusion" simply because I liked the cover in this older edition and the paper that aged with dignity. I resented a nice portable cheap copy of "Middlemarch" that hid from me when I desperately sought out a copy. Books are physical. My collage and assemblege teacher feels our paintings before giving a crit. He seems to say, "how do you know a painting without touching it?" Well, how do you know a book without touching it?

life is a collage

Started reading "the forest for the trees: an editor's advice to writers" by Betsy Keener in order to prepare for a project.. or maybe I just missed writing ... What a tiring self I am living with who needs a reason for everything? Anyway, I am shocked at how much this book can apply to visual artists as much as writers. This can attest to a common foundation in all creative work. Or maybe I just see art everywhere now. My collage and assemblege instructor says the job of the artist, among many things, is to see connections between seemingly unrelated things because in the end everything is somehow related. "Life is a collage anyway," he says... he also says "collage is a painting." So life is a collage; life is a painting. What a terrifying thought.

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everyone had the same idea

Today is one of those transition days that is not quite an autumn but definitely not a summer. It is quite beautiful and fleeting. There are not many days like these and I know my days of being able to fret over the concerns of an art student are limited as youth is also fragile and fleeting. I found myself with a couple of hours before my evening drawing class... I had too many art student luggage to be mobile and walking away my angst. So I braved the NYU undergraduate crowd, grabbed a cup of earl gray and went to the Washington square park ostensibly to sketch. When drawing gave me a headache, I started reading. First I read "the book of grotesque " by Sherwood Anderson because Michael recommended it... and I realized I read this in the ninth grade and I wrote some crazy paper about the absurdity of packaging and owning a truth. That made me feel old and confused so I started reading my portable book about writing. That made me feel guilty about not writing anymore so I looked up... and saw that all around me people are reading. A dude next to me to the left is reading some course packet. He took the bench abandoned by some prelaw who read some serious blue prelaw book after whining about the LSAT on his phone while I was trying to draw. What a loser. Anyway, another dude is reading a tiny paperback... and the cute guy across the oval from me has been reading and underlining and crossing and uncrossing his leg furiously for the past hour... so he is impossible to draw. An old guy is reading a newspaper and I prefer him over another old guy who was here reading his newspaper. Two other people have read and left and so will I. To draw. Which is a choice I keep making these days. Leave the readers and draw.

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