UPDATE: I just remembered what set me to thinking about the notebooks. It's in a comment of mine in this post. And if you're trying to read the text in that first picture without enlarging it, don't misread it. It says: "Art Rages."
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August 1, 2005
The Amsterdam Notebooks—Page 1.
In the summer of 1993, I took a trip to Amsterdam, traveling alone and without a camera. I had a Mont Blanc pen filled with fountain India ink and two spiral-bound sketchbooks, and I was tremendously influenced by Bill Griffith's travel sketches, collected in "Get Me a Table Without Flies, Harry." I spent perhaps a week in Amsterdam and filled the two sketchbooks. When I got home, I xeroxed all the pages and assembled them in an order that made sense to me, producing 35 pages that I called The Amsterdam Notebooks. The other day, something, I forget what, reminded be of the Notebooks, and I decided to scan the pages an upload them one-by-one for 35 days. It's August 1st, so maybe it's a good day to begin. Here's page 1 (click here to enlarge):
UPDATE: I just remembered what set me to thinking about the notebooks. It's in a comment of mine in this post. And if you're trying to read the text in that first picture without enlarging it, don't misread it. It says: "Art Rages."
DETAIL ADDED:
UPDATE: I just remembered what set me to thinking about the notebooks. It's in a comment of mine in this post. And if you're trying to read the text in that first picture without enlarging it, don't misread it. It says: "Art Rages."
DETAIL ADDED:
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11 comments:
Nifty! If I recall correctly (and I may not), in Norm Geras' blogger interview with you, you said going to art school was your biggest regret. Why?
Thanks, Chuck. Art school displaced the normal undergraduate education I should have cared about getting. And art school offered very little that you couldn't pick up on your own. It didn't involve any kind of rigorous training. It was mostly just going about doing your own work with various people around you who were also doing their own work. There was also a teacher ambling about, willing to chat with you. All you really need are materials and a place to work and some people to talk to.
Mary: You might need to go to the enlargement to see that the sign says "Art Rages." I didn't make that up. It really was the name of a store. But the sign meant something to me that it probably did not mean to whoever named that store.
You have an 'eye' for photography - try some blk&white stuff with people as your subjects, forget sketching
Paul: I wasn't ignoring your question. I thought the correction of the sign to "Art Rages" would implictly answer it. But yes, "Does it?" relates to "Art Rages." Presumably, the shopkeepers were using "rages" to mean "fads" as in "It's all the rage." I was reinterpreting it as a verb to make an interesting sentence. "Does it?" is supposed to cause you to perceive the reinterpretation and then to wonder whether in fact art does rage.
I couldn't believe until I clicked on the "Table with No Flies" link that Bill Griffith of Zippy the Pinhead fame actually produced a more "serious" work.
Spending time sketching Amsterdam sounds pleasant and appropriate. It shows a purpose I find lacking in most vacations. Sightseeing, shopping and eating seem like set-ups for a good nap. Some comments talked about wanting to draw or sing. I suppose singing your way through Amsterdam would be another option.
Zippy the Pinhead's not serious?
those drawings are the most beautiful things I've seen all day! another reason to look forward to tomorrow.
Menlo Bog: Drawing on a trip makes you look at everything differently. Photography does too, but it's so quick to take a photo. To draw something, you've got to look at it for a long time. You learn it. It's a deep experience, quite engaging, and not like a normal vacation.
"Zippy the Pinhead's not serious?"
It's seriously funny, certainly, and seriously twisted. But the more I think about it, a travelogue by Griffith does make sense, because even in the Zippy comics, he does make some great observations of the human condition.
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