DRAFT

 

The dentist's office at the corner of Halsted and Chicago Ave. (in Chicago) always caught my eye when I was stopped at the light.  Their floor to ceiling blinds were almost always open and I was watching a kind of dental theater.  I convinced coworkers Sajjad Bhatti and Eddie Miranda to come down to this location for a photo shoot at dusk so that I might capture both their poses and the dental situation. Sajjad's traditional Pakistani clothing, Eddie's real estate agent outfit, his brief case, Sajjad's cell phone - these were all items I deliberately asked them to bring.  It certainly upped the "just what the Hell is going on here" quality to the scene.  I made poor Eddie lean and reach so many times... but finally I got this pose!  I wound up splicing Sajjad's pose onto this scene with Eddie.  (it didn't happen this way) I wanted there to be a very strong and dynamic compositional triangle amongst the three focal points.  Eddie's back hand and Sajjad's gaze (with phone toward us) was the key.

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I had just finished Cast and was very much on top of my game in working with very large stippling dots at the time.  I had wanted to do the blinds in as large a base size as possible, assuming that the results would be showy and that it would call attention to that aspect of the drawing.  I think I had Ahab's "pasteboard masks" or a similar idea in mind.  Here the blinds are like a kind of veil. (what a name in this context: "blinds")

 

But it was not be.  I finished the rough draft in the fall of 1992 and then soon moved to Miami.  One thing led to another and work proceeded in only fits and starts.  As the project stalled years eventually turned into decades.  Finally I began to work on it again in earnest in December, 2013.  My plans for the big dots never quite worked out.  Even using small dots, these blinds were a bitch!!  Other than the significantly larger Halloween I never spent more time on a drawing.  When I finally finished it in March, 2014 I felt a real weight had been lifte