Georges Monnot and Me

It’s been two years since I met Georges in Samois-sur-Seine two years ago. We had returned again to the northern region of France to see the Django Rheinhardt festival held each year in Fontainebleu. This picturesque village was where Django and Georges lived, and originally where the gypsy jazz guitarist held the festival. Samois is such a beautiful place with a typical little square with cafes, bars and patisseries. A distant church bell chiming on the hour added to the ambiance of village life here.  A gypsy jazz band playing in the square was part of the the festival before it grew so big that they had to move it to Fontainebleu. It was fun to people watch sitting out side in the morning sunshine. Everyone engaged in conversation, coffee, and drink, made me feel happy.  As engaging and interesting to watch the crowds were, there was another man not far away from this bustling little square who captured my eye. 

Georges was someone way too young to belong in a graveyard along with Django also too young. Yet here Georges was in this lonely little grave yard. Those who had his memory are also long gone. I wondered if he enjoyed the village square like I did, enjoying coffee, and gypsy jazz. 

Georges was such a handsome young man who apparently was a deportee, and all that is left of him is a photo, and plaque in this tiny little village on the Seine just outside Fontainebleau. His young face and piercing eyes held me long enough to read that he was a deportee during the second world war, and thus transported to one of the many concentration camps in a cattle truck cramped in with many others. 

What a story this young man if he had lived could have told. Sadly, it is the same story over and over for many... Too many. My sketches are poor and don’t serve this young man justice. I yearn to know more about him, but I probably never will. As I work on his little face, I wonder who he was; was he in love? What about his family? His personality? Was he into gypsy jazz, and danced to Django..? Did he play? Everything about him I want to know, but never will. All I can learn about him is the shading of his features, and how to draw. He is teaching me with his mesmerizing gaze. I hope that maybe he escaped? I hope, but deep down know, that this young man most likely suffered before his untimely death. No matter what, a young man doesn’t belong in a graveyard at 21 years old. That leaves me sad. 

I didn’t draw the surrounding plaque. I want him to be alive and be who he could have been. I would like to tell his story, but this is one story I cannot tell, except my story and my discovery of him. There were too many Georges of World War II. This is my tribute to him and all deportees of France. 

Georges, I will keep drawing you, and one day you will hopefully be immortalized in a charcoal drawing of mine. For now, here you are in Graphite. 

Georges Mennot 1945 age 21 years old. 

Around in Circles

My father always used to say, “Why stand up when you can sit down, and why sit down when you can lie down?” I was quick to adopt that line of thinking after trying to draw a circle free hand as suggested by an online tutorial on things to practice. Practice I did, but after filling a sheet of ovals, and scrawls that looked like a two year old let loose with my tools, I eyed my compass set longingly. I eventually relented. First, my journey towards the compass leading me to my final destination of a ball-bearing. 

I persisted a little bit more with my circle drawing. The circle was not perfect, but I rolled with my “spherical” creation and got to work on the shading per a couple of tutorials. The shading turned out a little better than my free-hand circle-drawing. The small drawing on my scratch paper resembled a rather nice tomato which was completely unintended, but that’s okay. I like tomatoes. Usually, still life is drawn with a real life visual or a photo. I chose an image of a fancy expensive ball-bearing. More on ball-bearings later as they have a fascinating history. Bear with me. 

The objective of the sphere-drawing exercise was to get practice with shading objects, and highlights with a realistic shadow. My larger free hand orb, turned into a loaf of squarish bread. It was this result that I applied my father’s rule of thumb about sitting up when one can lie down. 

So why try to draw a circle free hand when I have a tool called a compass that does the job perfectly? I decided to employ the easiest, and most comfortable route that would draw a perfect circle. I relented to the compass beckoning to me and reminding me of what perfect circles it can draw.

I quickly had a perfect circle at the size I wanted rather than what my hand thought I wanted. I could focus on the goal of magically turning my circle into a sphere by practicing what I had been shown in the online tutorials which by the way are fantastic. So yes, while I agree it is good practice to draw shapes free-hand, if I want to produce a perfect sphere, I will employ my compass for the task! 

My first sphere was done using a method of pre-determining the light source and shadow using some geometry by using ellipses to determine the where the light hits the surface, and the light fades to dark, and how long the shadow will be using points on the sphere.. I thought that was fascinating. I used graphite for the first sphere on my small sketch/practice pad, and then turned to charcoal pencils for my larger piece. 

And finally to round things off, my final sphere (ball-bearing) drawn with a compass and charcoal pencils (I used my stick willow charcoal for the background.) I feel reasonable happy with the result although my shadow could probably have been a bit longer. I’ll round off now with a little more about ball-bearings. 

So why a ball bearing? Ball-bearings are quite a simple technology. Their usage dates back to ancient Egyptians who used rollers to move large stones. They used the technology to build the pyramids (sorry Erich Von Däniken fans). The rollers were made of wood. Leonardo di Vinci is credited with inventing the ball bearing in a racer groove designed to reduce friction between two moving surfaces. However, the first patent was awarded almost 300 years later to Philip Vaughan, an Iron master from Carmarthen in 1794. 

 

I find it fascinating how this ancient technology is still employed in various applications, and improved upon. Nowadays, ball bearing are a bit more complex and the technology expanded to take care of shifting loads and forces. They are made of various metals like stainless steel, chrome, silicon nitride (ceramic), and titanium carbide.

Ball-bearings are virtually everywhere. Where this is a rotational moving part in an appliance, or machinery you will find ball-bearings. Off the wall applications are skate boards, and fidget spinners (remember those?).

Another little interesting factoid is that ball-bearing factories were often the targets of bombing raids by the the British in WWII that would severely hobble the German war industry. That’s how significant ball-bearings are. So, here’s to balls, big, and small, where would we be with out them all?

Leonardo di Vinci Drawings of Ball Bearings

Drawing Adventures

This week, I have been immersing myself in watching videos about drawing and learning about new media. I took the sound advice of an acquaintance who is an artist and suggested that I try “conte”. I was clueless. So off to YouTube I go. The art work produced by conte is splendid. The artists I watched work like magicians where images of amazing 18th century-like artwork evolves before your eyes. 

Conte also has an interesting history. During the Napoleonic Wars, graphite became scarce due to blockades preventing its import into France. So in 1795, a French man called, Nicolas Jacque Conté developed a drawing medium by combining clay and graphite. 

What is also nice about this medium, natural pigments are used to get the different colors. Some of the pigments are simply oxides of various metals such as iron and titanium. 

My first adventure with this media was obviously to draw something, but first, I watched a beautiful YouTube video of an artist sketching something that quickly morphed into a fresco-cherub. That was far too ambition for my liking. However, I thought why not try...? I wanted to draw something that reminded me of our trip to France and flicked through my online photos from our 2017 trip to Paris. And there she was; a beautiful nymph with hair adorned with leaves blowing in the wind.  

I sketched the tiny face of the nymph that I saw in the art work inside a wonderful restaurant, Le precope in Paris. I was determined to draw something French which would remind me of the wonderful day and evening meal that we shared with friends.  

I practiced first on my smaller pad with just a good old B2 graphite pencil. It didn’t take long. I had to chuckle when she turned into a pixie with her ear in the wrong place and a little on the large side, but she is my first portrait, and she has since grown on me. I like her. 

Watching drawing videos feels a bit like watching cooking shows where the cake comes out perfectly. And it looks so easy! So now, this is what my nymph’s face is suppose to look like. She is also accompanied by a poem: 

“the nympho of the shore with fish makes war in the month when raging winds on the waters make it return to the river and return to the earth the meadow where the flowers bring back the birds” 

I will revisit this Nymph again armed with conte. Now onto what I did manage to draw with conte.

Finally, I decided to sketch something much simpler. Another memory sprang to life when I came across a photo of a leather-bound edition of my favorite novel, Madame Bovary on a stall along the Seine Embankment. I love walking along there and onto Shakespeare and Co. across the street. At €250, I could only have the book as a distant memory. I have the book in a form I created from the photo. Alas, I can’t feel the old leather, and gently turn the aged pages, but I can turn the pages of my sketch pad and relive fabulous memories through the tips of graphite, charcoal, and now conte. 

Galilee Man

Meet Galilee  “man” or woman. The museum of Israel were careful not to misgender this ancient hominid from approximately 250,000 ya. 

I felt excited about drawing something so old. I’ve drawn things much older but drawing an ancient human felt special. Alas, after I completed my drawing, I discovered during my research on Galilee man that the fossilized skull was a cast! The actual fossil is housed in the Rockefeller museum in Jerusalem. Nevertheless, my “ancient” model still provided an opportunity for me to practice my new love affair with charcoal, and recall memories of the amazing rainy afternoon that I spent in the archeological part of the Israel Museum. I knew then that I had to return to drawing, and took photos with drawing the subjects in mind.

Months after my Israel trip, I finally resumed drawing and purchased various new tools for my planned projects. My new collection of tools includes compressed, and willow charcoal. Like all artists, opinions vary on different mediums. Personally, I am favoring willow over compressed charcoal partly, because it is much more forgiving, and easier for smudging. I am still learning about the different affects produced from the varying hardness and softness of the different types of charcoal. 

Back to Galilee Man, after all, the piece really is all about him, or her. I feel like I have something in common with him since he too has been cooped up in a cave for ages. Granted it has not been 250,000 years for me, but it sure feels like it. Galilee man was discovered in 1925 by Francis Turville-Petre and taken from Zuttiyeu Cave. Galilee man belongs to the taxonomy Homo heidelbergensis. H. Heidelbergensis was dispersed throughout Europe, and Eastern and Southern Africa. Fellow H.sapiens, he is our ancestor! I hope the rest of the family like this old fossil’s portrait... He sort of looks like Darth Vada, doesn’t he? 

Photo of Galilee Man cast is mine. Drawing, Charcoal 

From Milk to Booze

My drawing experience is growing with a main focus on still life right now. I eyed my vintage Coors pot on top of the kitchen cabinets where it had been collecting grease and dust for how long, I would rather not say! Also, I am proud of this bargain that I found in a junk job for what was $100 marked down to $30. I should really treat it more nicely. 

Before I could begin to use the pot as a still life piece, I had to start with a clean piece. After all, I did not want to mess with trying to sketch the accumulated brown grease.. (I must look up more often). 

The pot was a lot more challenging in part because I should have chosen a lighter medium. I did the lid with a medium willow charcoal which is thankfully very forgiving. For the pot, I used 4B graphite. I should have stayed with 2B which was my original intent. I had recently learned that it is a rule of thumb to keep lights mediums and darks together while combining charcoal and graphite. Also not to overlay the two mediums. I though the 4B would go with medium charcoal. Now I see that obviously, 4B is a dark rather than lighter graphite. We live and learn. 

Speaking of learning, I was curious about how Coors came to produce Malt Milk. It turns out that Coors turned to the manufacture of milk during prohibition. The equipment and processes used to manufacture beer is the same for malt milk. Coors stopped manufacturing malted milk in 1957. 

Another surprise while researching the story behind Coors and their Pure Malted Milk, I discovered that my prize was worth even more than originally thought. I found it on Ebay for $498! It deserves a second sitting for another still life. Next time with lighter medium. Perhaps all charcoal or all graphite. I haven’t decided. 

Meanwhile, my work is done, I will conclude it with a beer — absolutely not Coors though... Sorry Coors, but you should have suck to Pure Malted Milk. I like your vintage pots though. 

The Stars at Night

She lies in a world free from the noise of bustling people going here, and there;
a place, devoid of chattering voices filling the air.

Her quiet empty shell lies upon the ocean floor.
Her body -- all but a skeleton.

Her youth and glory, saw partying people; the wonderful ensembles of musicians entertaining her guests; romantic couples strolling arm in arm dreaming of their faraway destinations while making plans against a backdrop of a clear, crisp, starry night. A comforting night that sadly turned towards an ultimate darkness.

A cold black void extinguishes her last light. Optimism and dreams vanishing with the perished, and perishing. No longer will she witness the sights of joyful party goers, listening to the sounds of clinking glasses of champagne, the rattle of dinner plates, the metallic clatter of cutlery amid the hum of voices filling her rooms.

She misses the sound of heels upon the dance floor, and feeling the dedicated enthusiasm of the band with their striking melodies enchanting the crowds... Sadly, she forever embraces the company who lay along side her -- the party she took with her below, including the musicians who played 'til they could no longer play with a calm that soothed.

Forever, her guests, hero musicians, and their captain, lay under an eternal night upon an ocean floor. But as she sank, she raised hope... Hope for many who made their destinations. They too have since found their resting place, but not upon the ocean floor. Nevertheless, they too have joined the ranks of those no more.

To the beautiful Titanic, your brave musicians, and your passengers.

References:

Musicians of the Titanic.

A New Shade of Orange

"The serious threat to our society is not the existence of foreign totalitarian states. It is our own personal attitudes and within our own institutions..." John Dewy

Ever since the USA election and BREXIT, I’ve been watching my Facebook news-feed closely. In particular, I have watched with interest, the third party voters in the Presidential election, aka Hillary-haters. Many hated Clinton with particular spiteful rhetoric highlighting their misogyny. Self-proclaimed liberals were among them. Despite their claim of liberalism, or political “independence”, they voted third party even though they knew the high-risk of Donald J. Trump being elected as president and the consequences that his presidency would carry in regard to the supreme court. There was a deep grievance among them for Bernie Saunders not getting the democratic nominee. Their protest votes helped Trump. The third party Jill Stein voters contributed to the Hillary losses in swing states. This, my friends, is partly why we ended up with the alt-Conservatives’ wet dream in the White House. Even those liberals voting third party just could not abide the thought of "crooked Hillary" being in the White House. Trump, an abuser of women, a pathological liar, corrupt businessman, and narcissist conned his way into the White House with lies, regarding immigration, crime, and jobs. The older white woman could not even trump those characteristics. The residing president has denigrated the very office of President with his twitter-storms attacking the press and opposing party and in turn, making the USA the laughing stock of the Western world. The Hillary-haters helped put him there.

Unlike “The Apprentice” that just concerned the contestants, and mere passive viewers, this reality TV show is being aired live to everywhere. Its affects, and effects are felt and experienced by everyone because we are contestants and observers. We find ourselves unable to switch this show off from a remote control. The ramifications of the onslaught on the Environmental Protection Agency, the conservative Supreme Court Justice appointment(s), and the looming death of Roe v Wade lurk overhead. This farce of a presidency has already tipped the balance of the supreme court and will have another chance to get another appointee to the court.

On the other side of the Atlantic, the Brexiteers are still crowing about “sovereignty”, and how they’ve “got their country back”. From what they've got their country back from is not quite clear. What has materialized is that the racists and other bigots are emboldened to abuse people on buses, and trains “to go home.” Somehow they think that is really British. Somehow hurtling themselves back to a 1970s backwater country crippled by tariffs, and brain-draining is more British than being a part of something larger and stronger -- a united Europe.

Now back to the USA side of the pond. Most recently, I have watched the third-party people in response to the separating of undocumented immigrant children from their parents who cross the border illegally proclaiming how, “Obama separated children too”. Note the cognitive dissonance here: they hated Hillary that much, so they justify, or explain Trump, and commit the false equivalence that, democrats and republicans “ are all the same”...

Obama never separated undocumented immigrant children from their parents upon arrival. There was no law mandating such action. The third-party people; AKA (they-are-all-the-same camp) are enablers propagating such nonsense. That makes them no better than the Trump supporters who they imagine they despise. Little do they realize that they share more commonalities than differences with the Trump supporters who sport their MAGA baseball caps while shaking a "Lock her up" sign like a medieval warrior rattling his saber. The difference between them is a shade of orange. The shade of orange people are the third-party, Brexiteers and of course Trump-supporters.

The degrees of magnitude on how the current and previous administration differ are unprecedentedly cruel in terms of vindictiveness, and building adversarial relationships with allies such as the European Union. Other clear examples are children dragged from their parents upon crossing the border undocumented, bans of entry into the USA based on cultural identity (Muslims), publicly mocking disabled people, and referring to a free-press as “fake news” because they speak out against the narrative of the alt-right, or question it. Those illustrations are not characteristic of a healthy thriving democratic country, but that of a near banana republic. The list is endless. I do not recall other republican administrations in very recent decades ever being vitriolic towards pillars of democracy, or hostile towards asylum seekers, refugees, and other undocumented immigrants.

Daniel Jonah Goldhagen explained in his book “Hitler’s Willing Executioners” how ordinary people came to believe that a single agent (the Jews) were responsible for what ailed Germany at that time. Hitler was able to tap into what belief system which was already there. That believe system was in an exceptionalism of the German people. That exceptionalism enabled the Nazis, and much of the population to dehumanize what they did not consider German. Those were groups who they believed to be the source of their country’s problems — the Jews, along with other groups that they deemed deviant, or unworthy of being a member of their cult of a master race.

What was particularly striking about Goldhagen's book (outside of the horrific descriptions of the persecutions during those times), were the similarities between Third-party supporters, Trump supporters, and the Brexiteers and those ordinary citizens in 1930s Germany. The shades of orange people are those “ordinary people” who Goldhagen describes. These “ordinary” shades of orange people maybe your neighbor, some of your colleagues, or your life-long friend from high-school. They might not emerge right away, but I have observed over the last two years, how these people slowly shed their veneer revealing all. Believe it when you see it.

Trump managed to tap into that same near-mystical concept of superiority (exceptionalism), that plagues the USA. Nigel Farage did the same thing across the pond in the United Kingdom by manufacturing the need to leave the European Union through lies and spreading fear about immigration, the NHS, and a disruption of sovereignty. The belief in the British Empire as virtuous, and an almost mystical belief in superiority and the good ol’ days runs deep in the same way as exceptionalism runs deep in America.

The USA and the UK have many things in common one of which is the inherent belief in exceptionalism. Exceptionalism is powerful, and a dangerous belief system because we can justify anything in the name of being superior. Being superior allows us to dehumanize groups, and become authoritarian. The historical outline in Goldhagen’s book shows how ideas are spread like a virus throughout a culture, and passed down from generation to generation.

Richard Dawkins, in his book, “The Selfish Gene” called ideologies “memes”. Memes are passed down like genes. We inherit ideas like we do genetic traits. Ideas spread like virus and replicate, sometimes mutating and becoming more viral -- intense. For example, “Make America Great Again” is a meme that spread like a virus. Nigel Farage’s UKIP campaign poster of, “Breaking point: the EU has failed us all” with a photo not of Syrian refugees, but migrants crossing the Croatia-Slovenia border in 2015. The meme was a lie to deliberately conflate the Syrian refuge crisis with EU-immigration. The meme spread fear, and galvanized xenophobia. Both worked.

Third-party Hillary-haters who just could not vote for Hillary are a mere shade of orange from the current resident in the White House, and his fan-base. This shade of orange has helped normalize Trump by even suggesting that the Democrats held the same policies as this administration. A friend recently described Trump as a symptom of this country. The shades of orange, are the agents. The agents spread the viruses (lies) contributing to this country’s chronic sickness.

The aforementioned countries never looked in the mirror and examined who they were. No introspection. A population does not look inward when they believe they are the best. When you imagine you are the brightest bulb on the tree, you don’t see how bright the other bulbs are shinning too. We are in trouble; a vortex from which we cannot escape. At least not for decades. Right now, there appears to be no antidote for the disease of exceptionalism that plagues both nations.

A collage of Facebook posts selected from over 200 screen shots that I took from my feed during and immediately after the 2016 presidential elections.