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

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....

Spaceland Sketches

I've posted some fun little sketches I did at the Parson Redheads show last week at Spaceland. I kind of wish it was less crowded so I could've snagged a table closer. But instead I was tucked between the merch table and the trash can looking at the backs of heads. Spaceland is not the best place to sketch, Silverlake Lounge is better, and perhaps Bordello. Also El Rey is good (when they have the tables & chairs set up along the side) because it's easy to see over heads and sometimes the lighting guy throws up some crazy stuff. I think my new fantasy is to someday paint a large canvas live on stage with a band. I heard it's been done before, it never occurred to me it could be done. In high school during talent show time I would feel left out that as an artist I couldn't put my talent in front of an audience. But live painting side by side with music would definitely work. Some day I will find a way to do this. Meanwhile I will keep drawing at shows I go to sitting quietly off to the side....

bohemian night

Walking at night is lovely in silverlake, I think i could walk forever along the dark curvy roads that seemingly go nowhere. this time of year there aren't as many flowers blooming, that I missed. their scent is stronger at night and reminds me of northern Israel where there is a city I visited where the air is filled with the aroma of every flower possible and I've tried to figure out what flowers they were ever since. And I swear there are the same flowers here in LA.... But tonight the aroma was more of mulch and dirt which is pleasant in a different way. And the hills were very quiet, just the hum of traffic in the distance. I don't like to listen to music when I walk. Natural sounds are even better... the brief bits of conversation, TV, music. The constant rhythm of my feet. I steal glimpses into lit windows that feel like frames of pictures. I see vases, couches, chandeliers, framed art, books. I wonder what they read, who they are, what they do, where they go. Everything looks charming in a window, it's like a miniature stage with much quieter drama. Sometimes there are no characters at all. The roads are very narrow with little lighting and steep inclines. The homes are build into the hills and overgrown plants in a haphazard terraced manner. Some of the homes look like the big earthquake has already hit. They have crooked doors and sagging beams and the paint falls off like paper. There are vines every where, and hidden staircases and lamps meekly radiating yellow light. There are no straight lines or order, and it's almost as if you can see all the changes and incremental movement of the landscape from decades layered on top of each other like multiple exposures.

My walk ended at spaceland-- which was more a reason to walk through the hills at night than a destination. I have returned to sketching musicians and crowds. It seemed like I needed to be a bit bohemian and return to living fluidly without structure or discipline. When I draw from people (especially in a public place) there is no control. People move, stand still, turn around, block your view-- whatever is unexpected. It's nice to sketch them because I can't get too precious about anything. I see a nice moment... such as a person whispering in another's ear, a couple embracing, a person walking through my view... and it's gone. I draw what I can. Sometimes it's a figure, somtimes it's just an elbow or outline or nose. I layer the drawings on top of each other and they form a sort of messy shape of gestures. Again, it's kind of like multiple exposures. Little is recognizable, I capture the energy of a person or people moving by and it's gone. And then among all this I like to put the sketchpad down and join the picture because behind all of this is the music which always put's me in a transcendent mood and makes me skip home giddy and glowing.

holy crap I'm moving

Yes I've been missing lately (though it probably doesn't matter since I have no readers) and admittedly haven't been focused much on art. I've wrapped up most of my recent in-process paintings, photographed them, handed them over to my web designer (who proceeded to not update my website), and turned my attention to getting a new apartment-- one that wouldn't involve my spending up to 3 hrs in the car each day getting to and from work.

So I have found the perfect apartment (as perfect as it gets without thousands of square feet to spill paint in) tucked on the side of a hill in the Loz Feliz/Silverlake area. It is a one bedroom so I will be roommate free and can officially become the crazy artist hermit I am aspiring to be. And once I'm settled and have my art studio back in order in it's new home, I'll start posting pictures and blogging again.