Day Two Hundred Twenty

Phew! One down, four to go.

Luckily, I’d thought to write this post out after I finished illustrating but, as my handwriting was almost illegible, I decided to save you all and type it out.

tem-po-rar-y adj. Lasting for a limited amount of time; not permanent.

Now, at first glance, it may seem a little strange to pull the word “temporary” out of a dictionary and end up with the sketch that I have before me, but I’ll do my best to explain the thought process on this one.

So, temporary got me thinking about rain-it in and of itself is a temporary thing, but it also causes many other things to be temporary. Rain led me to thinking of some of my favorite places to be. In case you are new to me or to this project-my absolute favorite places in this small town are the alleys in the downtown area. I have walked down them so often; I’ve started to learn the details of each block, and am able to notice when the little things change. At a glance, it seems as though these places stay the same yet, when you stop to look, you see that they are continually shifting and changing.

Although there will always be paper strewn along the pavement, that paper changes. The dirty water that pools in the potholes and cracks is not quite the same water that lay there the previous day. This is where “temporary” formed in my mind as something more concrete: a more solid idea that I could, with some luck, be able to express.

I loved the juxtaposition of ideas when I began to think about the permanence and impermanence of alleys. Beyond the fact that the larger details (where the dumpsters sit, the look of the buildings) do not vary, I wanted to focus on the details. (Details have been a big deal to me lately-trying to notice everything about a scene will, I hope, help to broaden my mind when it comes to photography and illustration.) I loved the idea that, although the literal details change, the general details remain largely permanent. For example, that hipster looking for cool stuff in the dumpster may be a different hipster from the one you saw yesterday, but, the fact is, there’s still a hipster picking through cardboard and day-old bags of trash. The paper littering the ground is different, but there’s still paper beneath your feet.

I don’t know. It seems as if it’s becoming increasingly difficult to effectively communicate these thoughts that I find so fascinating. The deeper I go into my head, the more of his stuff I pull out but, the deeper I go, the harder it is to share what I’m thinking once I’ve come out of it.

Who knows, maybe I’m just a loon.

I hope so.

Good evening everyone.

Xx

r

Note: It was late at night when I wrote this, so apologies if this is rather redundant.