The Painter’s eyes weren’t ordinary eyes, nor was he an ordinary sketch artist, bargaining for a twenty dollar bill on Times Square. He had a little booth next to a bodega on 3rd, and he didn’t work in chalk or pencil, but in fast-drying egg tempera, with particularly dark yet vivid hues. The Painter wasn’t known to anyone by name, as far as anyone knew. He was simply “the Painter” and, if you sat for him, he looked at you the way you look at a bug in a jar. Your surface persona – that was the jar. [Read more…] about Paying for Your Soul Up Front
eyes
Hands that Listen
Racy Feder is the fastest sketch artist in the world. When the second tower fell in New York, she wasn’t taking a photograph, she was standing in the street, pencil in hand, making a sketch. When she was witness to two men making it out of the bank on 42nd Street with automatic weapons and sacks of Chase’s money, no one dared hold up their cell phones for a shot. Racy, sat calmly and efficiently with her knees tucked in, seemingly scribbling on a pad, and her not one but two sketches became the only globally syndicated images of the holdup. During the ice storm two years later, when cars were sliding out of control on I-87, Racy turned in drawings to her grandmother’s insurance company, made on the scene, showing the trajectory and position of each car in her line of sight, even before their own vehicle was struck. [Read more…] about Hands that Listen
Plaster
Down the hall there stands a wall;
its angle wrong, its tilt askew;
you’ll hit your head or scuff your shoe;
but if you’re dead, you go right through.
Jamie was only seven, but even at seven he could see the door was just a distraction – a fabrication for the eyes, which is where most people kept their minds. But Jamie’s mind was where it should have been – that is to say, everywhere. [Read more…] about Plaster