This is my rendering of a scene at the entrance to I 95 from Sunrise Blvd. in Fort Lauderdale.  Usually there are vendors on this median divider island. Fruit, cold drinks, even flowers can be for sale.  But at this moment an obviously mentally ill, aged and crippled woman had the median to herself.  As she paused for a while - as if to "own" this little spot in the center of a 6 lane highway, I took a series of photos with my cell phone.  My filthy windshield caught the glare of the setting sun beind her and the resulting photos emerged as a mess of debris and glare.  The back lighting silhouetted her for a moment and her crazy, crippled and impoversihed presence seemed transformed for a moment into a figure of a certain grace.

 

It made me think of some of my earliest drawings.  They had been crude renderings of views from the inside of my car. My great aunt Helen, a very, very talented and classically trained artist, and I had shared only one conversation about drawing.  It had been about these very drawings.  I remembered it well because she told me she had also drawn views from the inside of cars...  in 1920's Manahttan! For me this scene became an emblem for how one can find in the least likely places grace, beauty, and connection  (or whatever else one is looking for - think of Jesus in a grilled cheese sandwich).  It was the start of what I later called the Helen Triptych - three different pictures that would use my great aunt as a vehicle through which I would think about influence, symbolism and connection.  This is definitely one of my most high pretense pieces!

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There is a small cottage industry of paintings of blurred views through wet car windshields.  I find these interesting and admire the technique that goes into creating them.  However, I wanted this to be a bit different.  I didn't want it to be too obvious that it was a windshield.  I tried to use the largest stippling whenever possible.  I wanted the experience of looking at this drawing to be like struggling to make out an image amidst a blizzard of television like static.

 

DRAFT