Snakes and Zombies

John drawing at Grand Central Bakery. SOOC.

ART: DDW July challenge by Anniemay

While waiting for my Thai peanut soup with tofu, I noticed this man hunched over his sketchbook, drawing. I was impressed by his concentration.

I wandered over to see what he was drawing. He hardly noticed me until I asked permission to watch. Very courteously he offered me a chair beside him and continued drawing.

I saw that he was not sketching the bakery, as I'd assumed, but was making some kind of design. I asked what he was drawing. He said, "Moses and the Brazen Serpent. I think I'm going to add a contemporary aspect - zombies." Why zombies? "When people are bitten by the serpents, they turn into zombies."

(The Biblical story, sans zombies, can be found in Numbers 21:4-9, here.)

After receiving permission to photograph John, I continue interviewing him. His drawing is preparation for a painting. It is based on a famous painting "maybe in Italy". (I later discovered that there are paintings entitled "Moses and the Brazen Serpent" or simply "The Brazen Serpent" by Anthony Van Dyck, Michelangelo, Tintoretto, and Poussin. None of them closely resemble what John was drawing. He drew from memory and imagination, and his draftsmanship did not seem expert (although neither does Cézanne's).

I'm not a big fan of snakes. Ditto, zombies. The reason I was intrigued by this interaction is that John had seen an artwork that caught his imagination, was transforming it and making it his own, and was pursuing this vision with great intensity. I wish him well with his art.

Prosper the work of our hands; prosper our handiwork.

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SCRIBBLER'S ODYSSEY
(by request)

There's many a slip twixt the cup and the lip.

It's an ironic badge of honor at my age to be suffering an athletic injury!
I have injured my knee doing yoga, and it is getting worse.
I have begun walking with a cane.
Doctor tomorrow.

Small progress on creative endeavors. But I'm still blipping.

Thank you for all your comments! I read them eagerly.

I hope to catch up with your journals eventually, but for now I just look at your thumbnails and sigh and remind myself that now is not the time to click.