Silver Lake

Silver Lake
Originally uploaded by Bekka Teerlink

However I feel like I'm out on a limb by not drawing something observational-- like drawing things like this are somewhat silly. Though that feeling sometimes means I am doing something right. I'm thinking of doing some in oil just to see what happens. (This one is colored pencil and acrylic paint out of my sketchbook.) But I don't know if I could do abstract paintingse exclusively because it only satisfies part of what drives me to create art. Sometimes I feel like I'm two different artist in one body-- an old fashioned observational artist and a (budding) abstract artist. I wish I could combine them somehow but I can't seem reconcile the extremes.

View past map drawings:

the streets run like the lines on my palm
Eight Years in LA, A Portrait

the streets run like the lines on my palm

the streets run like the lines on my palm
Originally uploaded by Bekka Teerlink

another map, maybe a better one. but it looks more like a map than I wanted. I wanted it to be more abstract. though the streets aren't right-- because memories of where things are always shift and when you try to draw them you see it put down muddled and out of order. but I kind of like the lack of precision that memory has.

Eight Years in LA, a portrait.

Eight Years in LA, a portrait.
Originally uploaded by Bekka Teerlink

This is a departure. I was going to post another entery in my steady flow of people sketches of late. But my mood has skewed to the other end of the spectrum this week. Instead of looking outward I am looking inward I guess. It is a rather large jolt to suddenly be 3000 miles away from my home for the last eight years. I forgot how to live anywhere else. I'm still comparing everything to LA as I find stores, things to do, concerts, art galleries, museums, the cafe that will have my new favorite tea.

Tonight I'm in a particularly reflective mood. I go to many concerts. Many. 1-3 a week, depending on my usualy flux of commitments and projects. And always local musicians because I enjoy small venues and lending support to musicians I like. Since I've been in the Boston area (4 months now?) I've gone to just two concerts. It's sad. Because I only know Los Angeles music I found myself at a concert tonight of an old favorite from LA, Ferraby Lionheart.

But what I thought would be a night of getting inspired or getting lost in music became a night of being homesick for Los Angeles. It was also sad because I know that many of the most important things I loved in LA have since left or ceased to exist. Jobs. Friends. Music venues. Radio stations. Art galleries. It was time for me to leave as well.

However I miss having eight years of memories around me-- of places I went, things I did, people I met. When you stay in one place for so long the city becomes layered with personal experiences.

So this week I wanted to find a way to draw those experiences-- like a web of places and paths and emotions all over the city. I decided to draw a map of Los Angeles, but not a street map-- a map of everything I did in eight years there.

This is not meant to look like Los Angeles really, or be accurate with streets. This is out of my head and it may not make sense to anyone else. But here you go....