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{JOURNAL / SKETCHBOOK.}

November 2, 2009. 12:10pm.

V. nervous to come here. I’ve seen you maybe one hundred times but this was my first intentional visit. So… who are you. Here we are… I get bits and pieces. Your fine eyebrow, your full lips, the dismal colors of the architectural wall behind you. The light changes subtly, as if the sun came out. Your jacket, your coat, is magnificent. One eye’s penetrating gaze, the other looks off, can’t be bothered, noble, elitist.

Bumble bees swarm on your hat.

I see a dark blue sash for the first time, now.

And below, what appears to be a wrinkle, a rip…

You are protected by glass and every so often, I glimpse a ghost of my own reflection. Well here’s how it will be for the next year, you and I.

I sit down on the bench, back and to the left.

Immediately the strong S shape, like this:

is more apparent. A cartoonish shape in a generally somber and regal world. Your eye catches me still, even over here.

The light changes, gets warmer, browner, you could be a comfortable painting in a comfortable study. Peachy hues warming your handsome face. Even the green background is emitting a yellow warmth.

I always thought the binding of the book was set against the table, but now I see it’s not so. It’s upright. With the sun coming through the muted skylight, your lips are the strangest shade of orange!

Impossibly orange.

It’s a detail that is so unlike the rest of the picture it threatens to take it out of its time.

As if Neo Rauch leaned over Bronzino’s shoulder just as he were choosing the paint color for the lips, and guided his hand to the Cadmium Orange. How about this, instead.

I don’t care for the gargoyles on the table and chair, although I know I’m supposed to.

I see yellow – the yellow door, wood-grain yellow, and then the edge of the book.

And of course the gold bees alighting your cap. And your sash.

There is a reprieve in all of that depressing green with the darker column to the left – it’s a blue, bluish gray, or maybe charcoal. The color of my dining room.

Everything so delicately balanced.

The way your hair tapers off by your ear, gets mussed under your hat.

It looks like there’s an eye-shape towards the bottom of your coat.

The rips and tears of your jacket are feathery,

tactile.

Will looking at you ever go beyond a series of imagined sensations?