dog eared books
I was walking down Valencia today and noticed these little cards in the window at dog eared books.
They were like funeral cards I remember from growing up Catholic, except they were hand-drawn and featured the faces of people who've died in the last year or so...and a bit about their life, their birth and death dates, and some words.
Thom Gunn, Susan Sontag, Edward Said, and many other folks whose names I didn't immediately recognize. Some political, some artistic...all believers in human liberation on some level.
I stepped inside to ask who the artist was...what the project was...and the gal behind the counter told me that the artist's name was Veronica, that she was in New York now, that she just added them slowly as people died...and that I'd have to come back and ask Alvin for her last name and story....scribble, scribble....
What struck me was the vision she managed to capture in the faces with her labored and careful ink work. Like these folks were all still looking out, in death, at the project that they had committed their lives to. Like there was still something burning inside...an inner meaning...that they were asking us to think about, to visualize, to embody, to remember.
Worth a stop if you're strolling in the neighborhood.
They were like funeral cards I remember from growing up Catholic, except they were hand-drawn and featured the faces of people who've died in the last year or so...and a bit about their life, their birth and death dates, and some words.
Thom Gunn, Susan Sontag, Edward Said, and many other folks whose names I didn't immediately recognize. Some political, some artistic...all believers in human liberation on some level.
I stepped inside to ask who the artist was...what the project was...and the gal behind the counter told me that the artist's name was Veronica, that she was in New York now, that she just added them slowly as people died...and that I'd have to come back and ask Alvin for her last name and story....scribble, scribble....
What struck me was the vision she managed to capture in the faces with her labored and careful ink work. Like these folks were all still looking out, in death, at the project that they had committed their lives to. Like there was still something burning inside...an inner meaning...that they were asking us to think about, to visualize, to embody, to remember.
Worth a stop if you're strolling in the neighborhood.
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