Post-

Not-A-Gallery, Continued...

2012-02-18T14:45:00.000-05:00

A while back I wrote some posts that named several alternatives to galleries as a result of my frustration with the limited parameters of the traditional art market. At Bad At Sports, a down-to-Earth hipsto-blog about art, Nicholas O'Brien wrote about online galleries and what they are like, who they show and why, and how the spaces could be used. The comments are worth reading (!) at this google+ thread.

Portrait, Jan. 26

2012-02-16T06:30:00.000-05:00

Yo Yo Guy. I saw this man in the park messing with a yo yo. He's a red-head so the amazing hair and mustache you see were bright pale orange. I considered asking him if I could draw his portrait but as usual I was chicken-shit, so I sat a few benches down and he immediately prepared to leave. I got a good look at him before he scooter-ed off and this is him, to the best of my recollection, finished with his yo-yo-ing business and pausing to squint into the sunset before revving the scooter engine. [Image: head and neck of a white man with curly hair and large handlebar mustache wearing glasses and squinting into the distance, lit from the side. He's drawn in black & white charcoal, realistic.]

The Female Voice

2012-02-15T06:30:00.000-05:00

Flavia Dzodan at TigerBeatDown posted an essay about Lana Del Ray and how she embodies the phase in most girls' lives when they yearn to be that pretty cool girl. Dzodan argues that despite criticism Del Ray has garnered from male music writers about her gender performance, there is nothing anti-feminist about expressing those feelings. I enjoyed the post as I always enjoy Dzodan's writing but I'm not wild about the trend of young feminist bloggers who go pour over pop music videos to extract potentially feminist "messages" for analysis. I'm all for analyzing pop culture but bloggers seem afraid to admit that when big producers pluck a youth from obscurity and spend thousands on a video of her writhing angrily in a couture onesie mouthing sexy lyrics to a song produced by men, there is no feminist message. "But her onesie has punk spikes on it! Her hair is in a faux-hawk! But now it's pin-up retro! She was just writhing around on a cross! What does it mean?" Nothing. It means some rich guy said to some other rich guy, "this will make us money." The feminist analysis could be better spent on how the public receives the video, on changing trends, industry shakeups, who gets ignored and why, that sort of thing.

But I digress.

What Flavia's post made me think is that people all have the same complaint about new pop singers on the scene: "She can't even sing." I seem to be squarely in the minority (as always) in enjoying unusual or raw female voices like Bjork, Missy Eliot, and Kim Deal while unable to appreciate Celine Dion, whose voice is like nails on a chalkboard. I don't usually hear this complaint about male singers, particularly with rock and hip-hop (Kanye West? can't sing. Jack White? can't sing. Not like American Idols, anyway. But I've never heard any complaints.). By the time the full weight of The Industry instructs the public to like a certain singer, they will like her. But the public isn't comfortable with that awkward in-between time when the rookie singer herself is saying, "like me." But that's not my main point either:

A male singer's voice symbolizes his expression, his intentions, his words. A woman's voice symbolizes her appearance. That's why a woman's voice must fit in the narrow box of pretty-sounding performance. She must be "a natural." She must preserve The Voice as she ages and not sound gravelly. The Voice must have a showy feminine range and ~~look good naked~~ sound perfect in a live acoustic performance. If she can't belt it out with the voluptuous strength of Christina Aguilera she may opt to emulate a pre-adolescent voice like Britney Spears (kinky!) or a lithe slender whisper like... well, Brandy is the most recent one to come to mind.

Don't believe me? Let's consider how the female voice is used in music. Here's Rihanna, who collaborated with Eminem (why??) in 2010's Love the Way You Lie. In case you somehow forgot, Rihanna was the victim domestic violence from Chris Brown a year or so before this video. So what does she have to say about the issue? One sentence apparently, repeated in a pretty lyrical croon, sprinkled intermittently to decorate Eminem's rap. Yet Eminem says lots of stuff. (That's Megan Fox, by the way, in the video playing a hot domestic violence victim when she was still popular, before the public became exasperated when she objected to abuse in real life [sexual harassment from Transformers director Michael Bay]. Rihanna's career was also nearly destroyed prior to this because of public anger with her that Chris Brown had assaulted her. She sings with Eminem, who made a career of bragging about his abuse and stalking of his ex [Eminem's fictional fantasy? probably not?]. Fun facts.)

Here's Ray Charles with his decorative female backup singers. These ladies are exceptionally cool backups but let's face it: they are interchangeable, Ray is not. They're also fairly verbose for typical backup singers but I love this song so I'm posting it as an example. I cannot think of any female singer, past or present, who has a group of male backup singers (but I'll bet my dad could pull a name out of the aether if he really thought about it.) Pay attention to the male/female contrast in the last 40 seconds:

Here's what pop metal has to offer in the male variety (and please, oh please, enjoy the straight-up funniest depiction of a painter EVER. But I reluctantly give them credit for using a female lead to act out the male singer's feelings.):

...And in the female variety of pop metal. No yelling, no grunting. You could mix her traditionally feminine voice into any genre:

A major exception might be "teen queens" of the Hanna Montana / Hillary Duff variety, but really the studio invested in them when they were what, eleven? There's no way to know how they'll turn out. That's probably why the ex-Disney girls tend to look and sound like normal (pretty) people instead of models. If there were an accurate way of predicting before puberty, you know Disney would select the future models who have Aguilera voices. Similar to adult hair and makeup on a thirteen-year-old star, the Disney juggernaut produces pop music that sounds 'adult:' the voice obscured by heavy production, sometimes childlike but never playful. And compared with boy teen idols, who sound like sentimental women, the girls emit an highly controlled shriek that is at once angry, bored and glamorous. I'm not saying they can't sing, but this is how their voices are groomed and produced at that age.

So back to the bloggers who ask about Lady Gaga, Rihanna and Beyonce, "What do they want to tell us?" They're asking the wrong question. Pop female voices don't want, they are wanted. The Voice only desires in order to be desired.

All of the singers I've mentioned so far have been conventionally attractive. But the public will accept, somewhat, a female pop singer who is not conventionally attractive so long as she's got an attractive voice, which rarely happens in other pop art forms. And while I'd hardly put The Supremes in the category of "unattractive," the American public accepted beautiful black female voices decades before mainstream America accepted black female physical beauty as such.

Which brings me to the Portrait of the Day. I wanted to draw Etta James but in her most famous At Last 1960s photos she looked uncomfortable.

Finally I came across this video where she seems more at ease and in her element, and coincidentally when she isn't performing a "pretty" voice, which is where I took the image from.

I [was] serious about turning little churchgoing Jamesetta into a tough bitch called Etta James…. I wanted to look like a great big high-yellow ho’. I wanted to be nasty.

-Etta James, quoted on Colorlines. "She got frustrated by the fact that people constructed a blues identity for her work and deeply resented the “Earth Mama” trap she felt that put her in," writes Keynon Farrow in Colorlines' obituary. "[...] James’s powerhouse vocals and phrasing actively work against the sentimentality of [At Last]’s arrangement, as it does in most of her work covering jazz standards during that period."

Etta James. [Image: black & white charcoal realistic drawing of the singer's head and shoulders, leaning into the frame with her right shoulder and holding the microphone in her right hand. She is in mid-song with her eyebrows scrunched and her mouth open and tense.]

Portrait, Jan. 24

2012-02-13T11:30:00.000-05:00

Husband driving at night. This was drawn in the dark in a moving vehicle. [Image: pen drawing, mostly contour, of the head ad shoulders of a man driving in profile on the left half of the page; on the right side is the steering wheel and dash board.]

Portrait, Jan. 23

2012-02-13T06:30:00.000-05:00

My friend's cat, Jazz. Drawn while he was 'hunting.' [image: black & white pen drawing of the head and shoulders of a crouching cat sniffing a toy mouse. Somewhat realistic, thin dense lines.]

Oh yeah, I have a blog.

2012-02-10T15:28:00.001-05:00

Sorry for the dearth of posts lately. I don't intend for this blog to become a diary of my daily feelings-- thank God-- but I'm feeling kind of down lately. Nothing bad happened, I just feel like something bad happened. Anyway, there's a backlog of daily portraits to post-- even though, not even halfway through the first month, I failed at my daily portrait resolution for 2012, I still did them most days and am working on making up those I missed. I'm drinking plenty of water and leaving the house at least once per day (the backyard counts right?), so I should be better and back blogging again soon.

Portrait, Jan. 22

2012-01-29T06:00:00.000-05:00

Jean Dujardin as OSS 117, drawn while watching OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies. I'm a little disappointed with this one. [Image: black & white charcoal drawing of man showing his thighs upward, wearing a 1960's suit and tie and smoking. He has one hand in his pocket and turns to look back over his shoulder with one eyebrow raised. It is as cheesy as it sounds.]

It's a pretty fun movie. I remarked that the actor moves like a silent film comedian; turns out he just starred in a different film, The Artist, as a silent film actor. I wanted to see it in theaters but... this is Charleston. I'll just have to wait and Netflix it. Here's a clip from OSS 117.

Portrait, Jan. 21

2012-01-28T06:00:00.000-05:00

Fran Lebowitz. [Image: black & white charcoal drawing of middle aged white woman with short brown hair in a shoulder length bob wearing a winter scarf. She's viewed from the side and turns her head to look sidelong at the viewer. She looks inquisitive yet unimpressed.]

If ever I am photographed for publication by a photographer who gives a shit I'm going to ask to be photographed as if I were Fran Lebowitz (my previous plan was to ask to be photographed as if I were James Franco). Look at these awesome photos of her:

Photo of Fran Lebowitz. I couldn't find the photographer or publisher, so let me know if you know who took this.

Fran Lebowitz for BBC2 "Building Sights." Couldn't find the photographer for this either, though it might be a film still.

Fran Lebowitz, photographed by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, 1996.

Fran Lebowitz, by Jonathan Twingley. [Image: caricature of Lebowitz in black & white pen with a blue jacket. The proportions of her mouth are really exaggerated.]

The last is an illustration by Jonathan Twingley. I'll be checking his site daily now, as he as lots of awesome stuff up.

Holy crap.

2012-01-27T19:19:00.000-05:00

This might be the dumbest link I have EVER posted. It also might be my favorite.

Just one example of what awaits you at the link. [Image: Claude Monet's "Haystack," a painting of a haystack in an empty field. Underneath the painting is shown again but a Photoshop artist has replaced the haystack with an orange cat licking its own butt in precisely the same shape as a haystack.]

Portrait, Jan. 20

2012-01-27T06:30:00.000-05:00

Husband Watching Walking Dead. [Image: black & white charcoal drawing of head & shoulders of white man nearly in profile. He's lit from the front and slightly below, looking tense.]

A Month Without Mirrors

2012-01-26T06:10:00.000-05:00

I absolutely loved this essay on The Beheld by beauty blogger Autumn Whitefield-Madrano, who recently went a month without looking at her own reflection.

Not only is she starkly honest about the experience of the mirror and about what femininity feels like, Whitefield-Madrano is also incredibly perceptive to how socialization, psychology and abstract philosophy play out in everyday life. Even if you don't give a crap about makeup or the beauty industry, read the essay if you're interested in human consciousness, "The Gaze" in psychology and feminist theory, or portraiture.

[Image: a screenshot from Disney's Snow White showing the evil Queen's reflection in her magic mirror].

Portrait, Jan. 19

2012-01-26T06:00:00.000-05:00

Portrait of my cat sitting under an arrangement of white Asian chrysanthemums and baby's breath in a spaghetti sauce jar. She hears my husband in the kitchen and suspects he might be doling out soft food but is not so sure that she's willing to give up her warm spot. She also cannot quite see over her own fat belly into the kitchen. She eventually got up and investigated, making this an extremely quick sketch. [Image: black & white pen sketch of a cat curled up under a flower arrangement, looking at something to the right out of frame. She sits partially behind a glass jar full of flowers that are very quickly sketched.]

A photo of Kitty after she returned, disappointed, to her warm spot, sitting next to the drawing.

Portrait, Jan. 18

2012-01-25T06:00:00.000-05:00

Tuppence, from Agatha Christie's Tommy & Tuppence. I'm actually pretty proud of this one. Caricatures are way harder than realistic portraits, IMO. I pressed "play" preparing to draw twenty or so cartoons till one looked passable, but shockingly I was happy with the first try. Of course, as soon as I realized I liked the face I overworked it. The other thing that made me happy is that her entire head and upper body fit comfortably on the page. I have a major problem with fitting everything I want onto the page, even if the page is five feet tall. I have to constantly remind myself, "keep it small." I have a drawer full of figure drawings where the head is cut off by the top of the page because I didn't leave room. Lessons learned: 1. When you've got a good cartoon line, leave it alone! Opposite of painting, where if you fall in love with something you've made, you must destroy it and re-work it. 2. Booze is an excellent preparation for loose drawing. [Image: black & white pen drawing of a white woman in a flowery dress, net lace gloves and a Sunday hat looking demure with her hands clasped and neck craned. The lines are quickly drawn and simple. Not very realistic.]

Portrait, Jan. 17

2012-01-24T06:00:00.000-05:00

Portrait of my husband while he tells a story. [image: ink drawing of a white man's head with is forehead resting on his fist looking downward, viewed from slightly above. The lines are somewhat cartoony, made with a brush pen, but still somewhat realistic.

Welcome to the "Dark Side."

2012-01-23T06:00:00.000-05:00

Scheming evil genius Brain (of Pinky & The Brain) spoofs Orson Welles' charismatic but deadly dishonest villain in The Third Man.*

I asked for researchers to take a frank look at creativity and art a few months ago and it seems some "creativity researchers" have granted my wish. Please go read "The Dark Side of Creativity" by Scott Barry Kaufman, PhD over at Huffington Post.

These researchers found a correlation between creativity and dishonesty, so they designed a few more types of studies that would test the two in different ways and they continued to find the same correlation. I can point out what I think are some flaws in each of their studies but I thought they did a decent job of approaching the problem from a few different angles. Kaufman, reporting on the studies, names Bernie Madoff as an example of a creative and dishonest person. Commenter 'Bibulus' writes, "Newt Gingrich must be some sort of da Vinci," while commenter 'Pogo Bock' quips, "Well, that explains advertising."

Jafar and Iago from Disney's Aladdin. Nearly everyone in the movie was wildly creative-- and dishonest. Except the sultan, a remarkably uncreative thinker who was actively trying to force his daughter into marriage and ignoring the seething masses of his starving subjects while living in a palace, who was portrayed by Disney as an honest man.

It was a relief to read something that doesn't glorify creativity. Usually it's portrayed as magical and fairy-like, an "inner child" of a liberated few, illustrated with multicolored hand-prints and "joyous" abstracted dancing figures. My guess is this happens because the Arts are always pandering for money. This imagery and narrative apparently appeals to the wealthy, so there you have it. Some people really don't get that the arts are worthwhile until you inundate them those sorts of commercials shown on National Public Television with the leaping multiracial children and bounding classical music. Apparently this is what we look like to those outside of the Art World.

But the commenters on HuffPo were not so pleased. Besides the two I quoted above (and with the exception of one or two high-strung religious wackos), most everyone was a writer, graphic designer, or some other creative type who was outraged that this sort of attack on creativity would be funded, studied and reported upon.

Heath Ledger as The Joker. I never really understood the character until Heath Ledger played him. In the cartoon and Jack Nicholson iterations he never did seem very funny, he just did humor-themed things, and he usually just tried to poison people over and over. His special villain-trait seemed to be creativity plus a clown fetish, basically. Heath Ledger's Joker's evocation of the chaotic nihilist nature of the Joke was ingenious.

Creativity, as I see it, is a neutral human trait, not an inherently positive one. You can apply creativity toward dishonesty or toward perfectly honest endeavors. You can also be a very inside-the-box thinker when it comes to both honesty and dishonesty.

This brings me to the definition of "dishonesty." Honesty, in terms of being a moral person, is mostly defined as acting in accordance with the common morals that one's society deems acceptable. But much of the dishonesty practiced by inside-the-box lock-step thinkers (or creative thinkers during uncreative moments) actually passes as "common sense," though not all common sense is dishonest. I believe credit card companies and collections agencies are dishonest, at least the more egregious ways they behave in recent years. Yet U.S. society more or less accepts that they are an ok part of an ok economic system. So one could put in an "honest" day's work as CEO of a credit card company that basically steals people's money.

This would be an example of uncreative dishonesty that would not stand out as dishonesty to many observers because it's not outside-the-box behavior. I think this lock-step uncreative mentality allows this society to get away with collectively telling some whoppers like, "racism and sexism were terrible, but they no longer exist today!" or "poor people just don't understand hard work or they'd be richer," or "abstinence education works" or "we're fighting for freedom-- money has nothing to do with it," or "it's ok to kill people in these circumstances," or everyone's adamant belief that their parents have never had sex, ever. A solid majority of people engage in at least some of these dishonest ideas and practices and do not stand out as particularly dishonest people because they're not creatively dishonest.

*You may have noticed I've illustrated this post using only fictional characters who are creative and dishonest. That's because they were all invented by artists. Even though creative types turned out in droves to whine in the comments about the study casting creativity in a bad light, clearly the "creative evildoer" is beloved by artists.

Portrait, Jan. 16

2012-01-20T07:30:00.000-05:00


Melissa Harris-Perry on the Colbert Report. Drawn from the video clip below. I watched the clip over and over because it took me a while to get the pose, especially her hand. I'd never noticed how much Stephen Colbert talks with his hands. And as they sit with each other longer and longer, their hand gestures and posture mimic each other more and more. I also got to see Colbert do his "strong black woman" thing about 25 times. Win. [Image: youngish black woman drawn in black & white charcoal, realistic and detailed. She sits at a table and is shown from the front, her head and upper torso showing. She's got medium-long braids and a black cowl-neck shirt. She looks slightly up and to the side, mid-speech with some tension in the barrel of her mouth, smiling slightly. One hand is sitting just out-of-frame on the table; the other is up making a hand-cone-type gesture with her fingertips pointing downward.]

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

Transcript, copied from Shakesville, after the jump.

Colbert: My guest tonight has written a book on stereotypes of black women in America--I'm sorry, blaaaaaeehhh women in America. [This is a callback to earlier in the show when he called out Santorum's "black people"/"blah people" thing]. Please welcome Melissa Harris-Perry! [runs over to where Melissa is seated] Hey, nice to meet you! Thanks so much for coming on!

MHP: Absolutely.

Colbert: Okay, madame. You are professor of political science at Tulane, you have a new show on MSNBC--

MHP: Not until black history month.

Colbert: --Not til Black History Month. Do you get to go beyond Black History Month?

MHP: Yeah, maybe into March, which is Women's History Month.

Colbert: Oh, so, and you're both of those? I don't see race. Are you an African-American?

MHP: Most days.

Colbert: Most days. Okay, so, um, here's my problem with talking about race: Doesn't it divide us, by talking about our race?

MHP: You know, I do think that experiencing racism tends to be a worse experience than actually talking about racism and race.

Colbert: Uh-huh, uh-huh.

MHP: So, as a college professor, I feel like talking always brings us closer to understanding rather than dividing us. It can be tough. It can be a little nauseating. We don't always have the right vocabulary to talk across our differences, but the talking is always better than the ignoring.

Colbert: That would be a great tagline for your show: It can be tough, a little nauseating.

MHP: Indeed. [laughter]

Colbert: Okay, so you've got a brand new book. It's called Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America. What do you mean by shame and stereotypes? What are the stereotypes you're talking about, of black women in America?

MHP: Well, so, there are four that I look at. The Jezebel, that's the kind of hypersexual black woman, the idea that African-American women aren't in control of their fertility, that they just have babies by lots of different men all the time. There's the Mammy stereotype, that was on display quite recently with, for example, The Help film--

Colbert: Great movie, great movie. Based on a true story! [laughter; MHP gives him a look] Go ahead.

MHP: And then--um [chuckles; audience laughter]

Colbert: I'm just tellin' ya.

MHP: You threw me off!

Colbert: I'm not making this stuff up.

MHP: [laughs] Right--and then there's the angry black woman, that kind of irrationally angry, all the time, at any moment might just snap--[Colbert impersonates the stereotype of an angry black woman using body language, facial expressions, and interjections]--yeah, that one, yes.

Colbert: Tell it!

MHP: Yes.

Colbert: What's she called?

MHP: The Sapphire.

Colbert: Sapphire?

MHP: Sapphire. Yes.

Colbert: Wow. That's sparkly. Now, of these three stereotypes--Jezebel, Mammy, and Sapphire--which one are you? [laughter] Because I like to pigeonhole my guests as much as possible.

MHP: Well, you know, I'm actually that fourth stereotype, which is the Strong Black Woman. And in fact, the Strong Black Woman is the one that African-American women ourselves created. We borrowed a little bit from a lot of these stereotypes, but the fact is, even though we self-created her, she can be just as painful, just as problematic, this idea that we are inherently strong, basically born with the capacity to kick adversity's butt, just because we are black and women.

Colbert: That seems like a lot of the burden--and I know nothing about black people, but if I could generalize as if I did--it seems like the woman in the black community takes the great burden for the absence of the black male.

MHP: I think we want to be careful about that because the notion of--

Colbert: I don't like to be careful. I don't wish to be careful about anything here!

MHP: [laughs] But black men are actually not absent in this way--

Colbet: They're gone. There are none. They're like the Yeti.

MHP: No--no, I have one of them--

Colbert There's like a history channel show, like Finding Bigfoot--

MHP: Yes, Finding the Black Man. Where was he?

Colbert: Yes!

MHP: Well, one is even living in the White House at the moment.

Colbert: Yes! I heard that! [laughter] So how can there be--I don't judge, maybe he's black, maybe he's not--but if we do have an African-American President, we have an African-American first lady?

MHP: We do.

Colbert: Doesn't that shatter the stereotypes?

MHP: I guess I would say that no, she doesn't shatter them, but she does challenge them. But of course, she's challenging them at the same time that, for example, we're holding up The Help. So we have a challenging figure in the person of Michelle Obama as First Lady, and then we have these reinforcing stereotypes in our culture.

Colbert: But The Help is a historical document!

MHP: It is not. [laughter]

Colbert: It is!

MHP: No, no. It was never--

Colbert [talking over her]: That's how it once was. It was a simpler time!

MHP: Jim Crow was never like big fun in the kitchen.

Colbert: In some ways, don't all women face stereotypes?

MHP: All women face stereotypes, and the point of this isn't to say that there is--there's no Oppression Olympics. There's no one group where things are so much worse.

Colbert: But who would win if there was? Who would win? [laughter]

MHP: [laughs] Let me just suggest this: That the real point of this book isn't that there are these bad things that these other folks are doing to African-American women. The real point of the book is that it matters how we feel about ourselves, that African-American women's internal life experiences are part of the American story. So when we're listening, for example, to the GOP rhetoric about the nostalgia of this America when things were simpler and better, you can never tell that story if you bother to think about African-American women's experience. Because there is no moment in American history where it is nostalgic and better to have been a little black girl. And so what we do is we put black women's stories at the center of the American story, and, all of a sudden, the American story takes on a very, very different resonance and trajectory.

Colbert: You're trying to depress me. [laughter] Because when I think about something bad happening to a little black girl, I get very, very sad. And then I feel guilty.

MHP: Oh, I'm sorry.

Colbert: Okay? I don't know if you're familiar with this term, but that is called "the white man's burden." [laughter] Are you familiar with that term?

MHP: I do know that term.

Colbert: That's your next book. Thank you so much!

[segment ending pleasantries, wild applause because Melissa is fucking brilliant, etc.]

Portrait, Jan. 15

2012-01-20T06:00:00.000-05:00

Lily Tomlin as Violet in 9 to 5. This was drawn from a movie still (I edited out Dolly and Jane, unfortunately. Too much for this drawing). [Image: black & white charcoal sketch, somewhat realistic, of a white woman's head and torso. She sits at a bar with a margarita, slumped over with her elbows on the bar and her head in her hands looking non-plussed. She wears a dark suit and has kind of a mullet. Lit from the side, sort of noir feeling.]

Portrait, Jan. 14

2012-01-18T11:00:00.000-05:00

Carmen Tisch. Drawn from a photo in a press release, either a mugshot or similar. [Image: black & white realistic charcoal drawing of the head and shoulders of a white woman with long messy dark brown hair pulled to one side. She wears a sheepish grimace and looks slightly defiant. She's got a dark hoodie on and has mystical or geometric tattoos on her neck and chest.]

Oh man. From the files of ArtFagCity: Woman Pees On, About, or Around Clyfford Still Painting. Whitney Kimball reports that while the woman apparently succeeded only in peeing her pants, she punched and scratched the abstract expressionist work then gave the painting a good rub-down with her butt, such that it will need a $10,000 repair. The incident elicited this from gallery owner Ivar Zeile, who is apparently a living incarnation of Niles from Frasier:

Something as ridiculous as a woman coming in, who’s probably unknown to anybody, being able to touch the piece is kind of a slap in the face to the authority of the museum.

The original reporting from NBC stated that the woman was drunk, "the only explanation offered for such behavior." But judging from Tisch's expression I think she certainly has her reasons.

Portrait, Jan. 13

2012-01-18T06:00:00.000-05:00

Gina from the Agatha Christie/ Miss Marple movie, They Do It With Mirrors. Again, I drew her while the movie was playing, so it's a composite from moving images. SPOILER: I totally thought Gina was going to be the murderer, so that's why she has that classic "apprehended by Miss Marple" expression. [Image: black & white charcoal sketch, somewhat realistic and detailed, of a white woman's head and shoulders. Her shoulders face forward and her face is looking up and to the side, in profile. She looks desperate and pleading. Dressed in a collared shirt, wearing her brown hair in a bun.]

Portrait, Jan. 12

2012-01-15T11:00:00.000-05:00

Joan Hickson as Miss Marple. Drawn over the course of a film as the action unfolded, so it's really more of a Marple composite. [Image: black & white charcoal sketch of elderly white woman with a straw hat, showing head and shoulders. She leans rightward into the image area while peering slightly up and to the left out of frame, looking alert.]

Portrait, Jan. 11

2012-01-15T06:00:00.000-05:00

Portrait of My Husband While He Falls Asleep Watching Cartoons In Bed. [Image: a collage made of magazine pages in a square format. Horizontally across the bottom third is a man lying in bed with his back to the viewer and the covers pulled up to his armpits, made of solid teal blue for the bed, a white crossword puzzle cut out in the shape of the blanket, and his body cut from a blackish image. In the right half above him a blue skeleton or X-ray image of a man with his joints lit up in red runs away and to the right out of the composition, on a black background. On the left is a reddish-orange swirly abstract area, an ecru blocky image of some interior architicture and a black and grey slice of grainy photograph with red vertical words. Between the two halves is the profile of a head and shirt collar facing left and looking slightly downward. The head is made of diagonal blueish black skyscrapers at dusk with yellow lights on inside, while the collar is made of small text on a white background that is turned at the same angle as the buildings.]

Portrait, Jan. 10

2012-01-14T11:30:00.000-05:00

Detail of a portrait for a client. [Image: close-up crop of a white man's face smiling and wearing classes, looking up and to the right, shown from slightly below. Drawn realistically, somewhat detailed, in black & white charcoal.]

Portrait, Jan. 9

2012-01-14T06:00:00.000-05:00

Portrait of a Woman Inhaling. Drawn from a photo, an extra reference pic that my client sent me. [Image: Black & white charcoal drawing, very sketchy, almost like a comic book sketch. Woman standing with her hands at her sides, shown from hips up.]

Portrait, Jan. 8

2012-01-13T18:46:00.000-05:00

My God, what an awful portrait. The friend, in real life, looks much less like a pirate, nothing like a cone-headed Burt Reynolds, nor does his appearance scream, "porn star!" (to me, anyway). He actually reminds me a lot of the young "Woody" from "Cheers." And yet this portrait occurred. To be fair, though, I didn't ask if I could draw him, and he was trying to eat Thai food rather than hold still. And pen doesn't erase. [Image: small black & white pen sketch of a man's head and shoulders, looking down.]

Portrait, Jan. 7

2012-01-13T18:38:00.003-05:00

Detail of a portrait for a client. [Image: close-up crop of a woman's smiling face in black & white charcoal, realistic and somewhat detailed.]