How I Started Drawing: Story

Well, folks, I said I would tell you the story of how I started drawing- er- "really" drawing, and so I will. It all started with my fascination with people. If you want to get really deep, I've always had a need to remember people and carry them with me always. I think this desire comes from a need to bond with people. It carries over in our penchancy for taking photos and saving mementos and gathering together an impressive collection of information and potpourri about and of your favorite fill-in-the-blank: popular novel, TV series, actor- mostly as an adolescent (and as a former Harry Potter fan, I can personally testify to this phenomena). So since I've always had a fascination with people, I've always wanted to record them for posterity, remember each and every single one of them. I tried my hand at drawing a few times, but but for a one time fluke in ninth grade where I successfully drew my best friend and erased her at the end of class since it wasn't perfect and surely when I got home that evening I would replicate my beautacious drawing in an even more beautacoius manner... Right. :)I might still have that paper. :)

So after that disappointment I contented myself with surrepitiously taking pictures of people, an activity I still engage in today (only if I dare say, I have perfected the art). However, this past year I took a job in the Bronx. Now if any of you are from NY, and have traveled from the Bronx to Brooklyn, thou knowest that it is not five minute trek. Rather, my travel from the upper area of the Bronx to the middle area of Brooklyn required a ride of approximately an hour and a half to an hour anf forty five minutes. I sat there on the train and itched and itched as person after person sat neatly before me, just begging to be memorialized in some way. And memorialized they were. Aided by the tremendous breakthrough that I had achieved a few days earlier- the ability to decently draw a profile, a feat I had been attempting for years on end with no success, added to the donation of a sketchbook by my friend RS, and I was set.

Armed with my blue sketchbook and pencil, I set out to conquer the ravages of the NY MTA. Day after day, after after hour, I would sit there in my seat, asking people with a broad grin if I could sketch them (most people said yes- it's all in the eyelashes, I tell you! I am having much less success here in Israel, where I feel silly fluttering my eyelashes. ;) ), progressively and progressively increasing in my skill as the MTA got to know the girl who asked people to sketch them and then asked *them* to sign her sketches. (Actually, I only met around four people twice, excluding a very lovely woman I would ride the train with rather often) I sketched people of all race and color. My mother, who is one of the most strong-hearted women you will ever meet, took one look at my sketches and shrieked, "MINDY!!!!!" "What?" I innocently asked. "Splutter-splutter," was all she could come up with. "But you do the same thing!" I protested. (My mother had always embarrassed us by being the woman who talked to anyone and everyone. "Iiiiii-Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa," we would nudge, pulling on her outfit. "Let's goooooooo.") That didn't work.

I rode that subway six days a week for nearly six months. I met many people, spoke to more, somhow never paid attention to where I was going, and often made mistakes. I only got critized once, for-eh- drawing a woman while she was asleep. I suppose I deserved it. But most people loved the fact that I drew them. Their faces would inevitabkly break out in a grin when I would gaze intently at their faces, little me, with the little pencil, trying to accomplish something worthwhile in her time on this world. It was truly a pleasure to capture all these people and make them a part of my life for some time. And now, my friends, I will share them with you. The first few pages and some good sketches from within.

Enjoy!
Mindy