Walking the sacred pencil lines of Michelangelo and Raphael.

(click image for closer view of my torso studies based on the Michelangelo and Raphael original drawings)

I'm taking a life drawing class because for an artist, it's like shaving your head bald and meditating on a mountain top. It's how you get your chops, or get them back if you done lost them a long time ago, like I did from all this writing. And I wasn't sure if I'd have the time, but I really missed the quiet hush of getting lost in a drawing and time. You don't have to explain anything to anyone, cajole, beg, talk, yell, convince, or be clear. I don't even have to come up with the right word. The most important consideration is the trapezius muscle in relation to the calf.

The teacher, Sharon Pearson, told us to study life drawings of the masters. You learn by emulating their lines. What an epiphany! Is that was all those life drawing and anatomy books are for? I thought you were supposed to read them like TV guides. So I copied Michelangelo and Raphael studies and Michelangelo's bodies always looked like they were covered in saran wrap for skin, with all the definition.

So I'm having a blast and want to encourage any artists out there who've forgotten how to get back to the hush of what an artist loves most about getting lost in an art, and tell you how this is working for me. I'm always trying to parlay something into a project so that I won't waste any time playing about. But how silly of me. This is what can happen when you work for yourself and you're not careful.

It's really fun and amazing to feel like a brand new student all over again. I don't know a thing. I want to listen...

And I learned that I can't do drawings for people anymore. Like a prostitute with one last errogenous zone she keeps to herself, I tried to do a drawing for Kamala's sister, but I choked up. After always being ready to face scrutiny and insults and arrogance of the rampant fear out there in the business of the art/writing world, I don't want anyone to say anything about my one last favorite love. Drawing.

Drawing is raw and cheap. It always saved me whenever I was running away or in the group home or afraid of going to new schools before I got my tough girl shtick.

I'm so thankful to be reunited with it. I'm so glad that it's still precious to me and very intact. I was going to say intact like an emotional hymen, but that sounds so smirky and I don't FEEL smirky. No. Not in the least. I feel glad. Glad that I can't draw on command for anyone. That I still have my heart and at least something's not for sale no matter what. Not even for a hug or love or everlasting fidelity and loyalty.

It's mine. It's all mine. And no one can take it from me.

And for me to be able to accomplish such good studies right away, shows me that I've actually been drawing all along. I've been SEEING all this time. Drawing in my mind.

So this is to nudge the few of you out there who want to feel like a student who doesn't know anything all over again, to pick up an anatomy book and try to follow the lines of masters. It actually felt eerie. Like I had no right to trod on their finger prints or anywhere they've been. I felt connected.

And grateful. Grateful they left so much behind.

Holy work.

--Erika