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Michelangelo Lovelace, Ms. D. James, 1993
Nightshift
Curated By John Ahearn
Ms. D. James
“She’s so fresh, and you’ve drawn it partially in the style of a comic book illustration, in the way that the black lines are defining the form, but then you’ve got this sketchy color put in . . . I can feel her slouching in this chair and the way she’s giving this very penetrating gaze. And your sense of color. You know, you’re doing really complicated things so directly with marks. The moment you make the mark, that’s it. It’s done already.”
Alice Neel, Dorothy Pearlstein, 1973
“The more I look at these drawings, the more I am interested in each one. I care about all of them, and I don’t think that’s an exaggeration. This shows the consistency that you gave to each individual there, that you showed interest in each soul. That’s an Alice Neel reference - that you felt something you cared about in each person, and that you drew each portrait in an amazingly graphic and fresh way.”
“Alice Neel used to say, ‘You have to be able to draw when you’re looking at the person, but also when the person moves. You have to remember things and keep drawing. You can’t lose your focus. You have to be able to continue.’”
"Aside from Alice Neel, there are a lot of great outsider artists who you have a link to. One of the great original outsider artists was Henri Rousseau. He made these beautiful landscape fantasy jungle scenes, which he was making at the very height of the cubist era. The group around Picasso, when they saw Rousseau’s work, they had to stop and pay attention and say this is equally important as what we’re working on right now.”
Mrs. Hardwick
Michelangelo Lovelace, Mrs. Hardwick, 1993
“Van Gogh painted Madame Roulin, which is a woman in a chair, and it’s at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. I’m thinking about that and how you have both her sense of volume and space, but also the flat lines on the page are clear. You just have a few colors that you use. You’ve gone into pink and green for her pajama top, and then her skin color is perfect.”
“We’re in the middle of this pandemic with the coronavirus, and the most vulnerable place to be in the world is any kind of habilitation institution such as a nursing home, where people are often not in control of their lives. It’s a known thing that all over the country, many people who have died were living in nursing homes. So, it’s something we can all think about. This is just a wonderful testament to you at the moment, that you spent so much time drawing every one of the visitors that you could get to sit for you... Every face that I see is so full of serious inquiry, you are really looking at every person. No matter how different each person was, you see them very clearly. I want to thank you for that, for what you did. Now, the rest of the world can see these and think about them.”
James Speed
Michelangelo Lovelace, James Speed, 1996
“You have a clearly defined striped shirt, that almost looks like it’s big heavy scarf, that’s wrapped around his head. The pattern is so powerful. He’s got these heavy eye lids which are almost closing. Then you’ve got the mouth, and you include the teeth showing through his open mouth. The beard is just coming in. You might’ve been just below him looking up, so the part closest to you seems large and the top of his head goes away in space. He looks powerful and thoughtful. I love all the lines around his brow and the two broad almond eyes that are huge but closed, but are looking up slightly, leaving space under the eye. If you squint, boy do you see this? Your drawing is so strong, your handling of the light and the dark. It’s very powerful.”
The Day Room
Michelangelo Lovelace, Untitled, 1993
Michelangelo Lovelace, Untitled, 1993
“This one has three people facing us. Directly behind them, there is a deep space with a quarter where people are walking up and down. There are two more figures next to a telephone and then a third behind a lamp on a table . . . I can describe the three foreground figures in detail, the way their poses are different. One is frontal, one is to one side. You’ve portrayed all three people beautifully. Including how the woman on the end, with white socks and black shoes, has her legs crossed. Everything about the character is perfect.”
Euclásio Ventura, Portrait of Aleijadinho, 19th century
“Another connection I’m making is with a Brazilian artist, Aleijadinho, a sculptor who was the son of a white carpenter and an African slave, and he made wood sculptures of religious figures and saints. He decorated the churches, and he had terrible physical ailments, where he became very handicapped. He suffered immensely in his lifetime. But he kept working, and he is considered one of the most important sculptors in the history of Brazil. I went to see his work and he did many large sized wooden sculptures of religious scenes. His name in Portuguese means ‘Little Cripple.’”
Louise McKenzie
John Ahearn on Michelangelo Lovelace
Michelangelo Lovelace, Louise McKenzie, 1996
“You’ve drawn the fluff really well on this stuffed animal. It’s sitting on the bottom corner of the drawing. The woman is almost cross eyed, she’s so close to you and examining you, thinking about you. You’re getting a gaunt sense to the way her cheek bones go down into her cheeks.”
“I’m admiring the way you outline the woman’s head; the hair is doing two things at once. There is a general movement in how the hair is parted and pulled back into a bun on her head. But, all around at the same time, there are loose, frayed hairs that are popping up and running around freely, hanging off her head, and you’re drawing that very clearly at the same time.”
Théodore Géricault, A Woman Addicted to Gambling, 1822
“The artist Gericault is most famous for doing the “Raft of the Medusa”, which is up in the Louvre, but he also visited a psychiatric ward of, you could say, mad people back in the early 19th century. These were just horrendous places, where people were screaming and yelling. He spent a long time in this place and drew portraits of the people there.”
“What I think is most notable about the portraits he drew is that he truly saw them as regular people, exactly like himself. None of them look like weirdos or monsters. He made them look like he was drawing their portrait. I want to bring that up as an homage to you, Michelangelo. There’s another lineage you should feel proud to be a part of, this lineage of artists who have tried to feel things about others and see them the way they really are, not as society sees them, but more so as they are inside, as they see themselves.”
Nightshift: The Conversation
Read the complete interview between John Ahearn and Michelangelo Lovelace
John Ahearn: Michelangelo, it is an honor to talk to you today. When I came to Fort Gansevoort and saw your show in 2018, I was completely knocked out. I immediately wanted to feel a kinship with you in how serious you are, your passion, your compassion, and your feelings about the people in your community. We’re here to talk about your drawings in the nursing home, but before we begin, I wanted to bring up my Instagram post from the day I saw your show. The image is, “At the Intersection of East 79th and Old Cedar” that was made in 1997. There was a sentence I wrote about this painting: “Last night, many timeless masterpieces like this 'At the Intersection of East 79th and Old Cedar' 1997 black outlined and creeping shadows make the multitude of figures and cars pop off the canvas!” I want to now add that the space you define in the painting is so deep and flat. Everything looks like it’s been gone over with a big steamroller. The forms and the shapes are very abstracted, very carpal and very immediate, and every detail is very fresh, right on the surface. Nothing disappears into space. It insists on that immediacy. So, I want to take my hat off to you and tell you that I love your work. I understand that a long time before that painting was made, you were doing a series of portraits in the nursing homes where you worked. When were these completed?
Michelangelo Lovelace: I’ve been working in a hospital setting for 30 years now. The earlier drawings started in 1993, and they stretched over many years after that. They were made whenever I got the chance to draw.
Michelangelo Lovelace, At the Intersection of East 79th and Old Cedar, 1997
JA: The more I look at these drawings, the more I am interested in each one. I care about all of them, and I don’t think that’s an exaggeration. This shows the consistency that you gave to each individual there, that you showed interest in each soul. That’s an Alice Neel reference - that you felt something you cared about in each person, and that you drew each portrait in an amazingly graphic and fresh way. Aside from Alice Neel, there are a lot of great outsider artists who you have a link to. One of the great original outsider artists was Henri Rousseau. He made these beautiful landscape fantasy jungle scenes, which he was making at the very height of the cubist era. The group around Picasso, when they saw Rousseau’s work, they had to stop and pay attention and say this is equally important as what we’re working on right now.
So, the first image of the 22 is Ms. D. James. She’s so fresh, and you’ve drawn it partially in the style of a comic book illustration, in the way that the black lines are defining the form, but then you’ve got this sketchy color put in. It looks like you were using marker for this?
ML: Yes, I was using marker.
Michelangelo Lovelace, Ms. D. James, 1993
JA: I can feel her slouching in this chair and the way she’s giving this very penetrating gaze. And your sense of color. You know, you’re doing really complicated things so directly with marks. The moment you make the mark that’s it. It’s done already.
ML: Right, it’s permanent.
JA: We’re not going to compare you to Van Gogh, but we’ll just leave it at that. And there’s also the connection to comic book artists.
ML: During my early years, a lot of my influences came from looking at comic books, the style that superheroes were drawn.
JA: They were such good drawers. And this was also a trick of Alice Neel’s, who used to say, “You have to be able to draw when you’re looking at the person, but also when the person moves. You have to remember things and keep drawing. You can’t lose your focus. You have to be able to continue.”
ML: Right, it’s hard.
JA: I noticed that almost every drawing has the person’s name and the floor number, which I assume is where you were working?
ML: Right.
JA: How did you have this relationship with the nursing home, where you were able to work and draw the residents at the same time?
ML: I went through a job training program and got hired as a maintenance man, and then they fired me. I needed a job, so I then became an orderly in a nursing home. I was just transporting people around, but everywhere I went I carried a book bag with photographs of my paintings and drawings, so that if someone asked, “What can you do?" I would say, “Well, I’m an artist," and I would show them my work. A couple people found out I was an artist, and they told the activities director. She came to me and said, “Would you be interested in working in my activities department, creating art with residents?" I said I would do it. I’d never say no to free education. So, that’s how I ended up being able to draw and work at the same time.
Michelangelo Lovelace, Mr. Walker, 1993
JA: The next one is “Mr. Walker.” Fresh as hell! The way you combined the purple on one side and the yellow on the other, and then the cap. He has a guarded smile. You left blank the area where the light is falling on his face. It’s very effective. It looks like you spent three seconds doing the patterning on his shirt, like a master would.
ML: Mr. Walker was a patient who was always encouraging me. I would say, “Hey, what’s going on Mr. Walker?” And he would reply, “Man, how are you doing today?” We would have conversations like that and I’d do a quick drawing of him. He loved wearing his baseball cap. I would try to capture the essence of him.
JA: He’s looking directly at you and it’s a very deep gaze. He’s been through a lot. I feel that smile has a slightly haggard feeling behind it. He’s paying attention to you very strongly in this portrait.
Then there’s a woman with a polka dot print behind her.
ML: Yes, she’s sitting in a chair that has a polka dot pattern. I think she had Alzheimer’s, so she would just sit there during the day. You had to keep an eye on her, because she would get up and walk and you would have to protect her from falling. I found it interesting how she would sit there in her own space, her own atmospheric era.
JA: Michelangelo, you’re so direct in this thing. The greatest expressionist never drew any more directly than you have. I’m going to go back to Van Gogh again. He painted Madame Roulin, which is a woman in a chair, and it’s at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. I’m thinking about that and how you have both her sense of volume and space, but also the flat lines on the page are clear. You just have a few colors that you use. You’ve gone into pink and green for her pajama top, and then her skin color is perfect.
Michelangelo Lovelace, Mrs. Hardwick, 1993
Michelangelo Lovelace, Mr. William Angel, 1993
JA: Let’s go to the next guy. We have William Angel. This piece is boldly drawn, with the red and white striped shirt and the black cross-hatching wallpaper behind him. He’s not looking directly at you. He’s very thoughtful, like a Rembrandt. I love the way one arm sneaks into the fold. It goes around his elbow and back around the other.
ML: Yes, he was a very thoughtful guy. He reminded me of a person who had to be successful in anything he did. I tried to capture that essence of his being.
JA: Now let’s move to the group of room drawings. Did you draw all three at the same time?
ML: Probably at different times during the day. That’s the day room.
Michelangelo Lovelace, Untitled, 1993
JA: This one has three people facing us. Directly behind them, there is a deep space with a quarter where people are walking up and down. There are two more figures next to a telephone and then a third behind a lamp on a table. How did you make these drawings? Did you start with pencil to figure out the spacing?
ML: I would do a quick pencil sketch to get the spacing and depth of field. Then I would start placing people as they were. Three chairs, two behind them, create the walls, then the phone and the depth of the hallway. Everything is done quickly. You’re not worried about accuracy as much as you worry about the feeling and the space.
JA: I can describe the three foreground figures in detail, the way their poses are different. One is frontal, one is to one side. You’ve portrayed all three people beautifully. Including how the woman on the end, with white socks and black shoes, has her legs crossed. Everything about the character is perfect.
I’m going to go to the next drawing, which is a black and white drawing of a man in bed under a cover with a lot of patterning. It almost looks like an etching. He looks like he’s having a fitful sleep to me. I see his hand is coming through from under the coverlet. I love the cross hatching everywhere.
ML: Yes, that’s one of the features I was looking for – the patterning that exists. I was noticing as I worked that the walls, curtains and the blankets have certain patterns.
Michelangelo Lovelace, Untitled, 2008
JA: They’re slightly different, each one is distinct. They all come together. Now, was this done with a black pen?
ML: Yes, a regular pen.
JA: There is nothing more outsider than a black or blue ballpoint pen. And I say that with love!
ML: I was working at Metro hospital as a nurse’s aide, but you could sign up and do a sitter job, where you could sit with a patient to make sure they don’t unplug their IV’s or get up. And while I was sitting there, I was making these sketches I call ‘quick sketches.’
Michelangelo Lovelace, Untitled, 2008
JA: Can we go to this one? It’s very similar to the other but a slightly different view. She has a breathing tube in her nose – I can see the guards on the side of her face. You have that patterning, with the wallpaper and curtains. Again, it reminds me of an etching. You even put patterning on the desk. Everything has information on it.
ML: That’s what I was searching for as part of that portrait.
JA: I’m going to go to the next one over because I think these three should be seen together. I swear these guys are laughing. The guy in bed looks like he’s laughing at a joke that the guy standing up has just told him. And he’s leaning over. The other guy is a little further away, he doesn’t get it. These two guys are definitely onto something here. You have the clock, which Van Gogh would’ve loved, how you drew it in the top corner, it’s so strong and distinct in shape. You have the cup with the straw, and the family portrait beside it. You also have the light that’s turned off behind the bed. Michelangelo, this is a great drawing!
ML: Thank you!
Michelangelo Lovelace, Untitled, 2008
JA: And the way you draw them… You create a weird exchange between deep space and deep form, while flattening the arrangement at the same time. Nobody else draws like you. The figure with his back to us, with his hands in his pockets – there’s an outline that he causes. Look at the way the two feet are very flat, almost like a dancer’s pose. I find there’s a lot of humor in this piece.
ML: I’m appreciative of that because I tried to get that feeling, where you can tell they’re visiting and telling him jokes.
JA: How the hell did you get that? That’s impossible! There are four guards that appear high tech because of their shapes, like they’re from Star Wars. Then, for relief, there’s a nicely patterned linoleum floor which slightly sets everything off. Hats off to you for this one.
ML: Thank you.
Michelangelo Lovelace, Untitled, 1996
JA: We have a group of ten left. I want to look at every one of them. The first one, I can’t go past. He’s really giving us a deep serious gaze. There’s really nice hair up top, and then you have that dark shadow on the left, next to his face that makes his head pop right off the page. You’ve got the checked pattern on his shirt. Then he has the mustache, and you’ve included where he hasn’t shaved. All that stipple, on his chin and neck. You see the top lip, you make it almost black. So, the mustache crosses with that lip to the other side. Then, the lower lip catches that light, and his nose is drawn so concretely. It’s very solid. Michelangelo, aren’t you proud of yourself to see all these drawings?
ML: When I made them, I put them away for 10-15 years until now. I look back on them, and I’m amazed.
JA: Thank god you made them. Everything that you do, that is great with art, exists for that moment. You can’t go back and do it again, not in the same way. This gentleman’s face is turned slightly towards us, so the face is round on one side, and then the side we see less is flat. His left side is a flat vertical line, and the other is a round curve from his chin to the top of his head. By making it black behind the cheek on the right side, you make him jump right off the page. The line continues right up into the hair. Then, you see the little hairs are upright. Do you know what you want to look at next?
ML: All of it is fascinating to me, but Eddie Ragland (1996), this gentleman here.
JA: What a cool guy he is! He’s far from us, very introspective and thoughtful, with a huge brain and a lot of ideas. Some of the drawings have an outline with a curved shape around the edge. What’s the deal with that?
ML: That was something that I drew in to frame some of the drawings. I wanted to do something different.
JA: It’s so black it didn’t look like you did it by hand.
ML: I did it with a black marker.
Michelangelo Lovelace, Eddie Ragland, 1996
JA: Can you tell me more about drawing him?
ML: He was a quiet type of guy, but always encouraged me. I would talk to him, and he would always have something to say. If I wanted to draw his picture, he would let me. He would sit there, and we would just chat about everyday things.
JA: What did he think of the picture when he saw it?
ML: He liked it. I often gave them a Xerox copy, which they would have hanging in their rooms.
JA: When you get back and squint, you can see so clearly that his presence is there. The way the eyes are just barely defined behind the glasses. His brow goes right into where the glasses are. You’ve got the marks on the frames of his glasses just perfect.
Michelangelo Lovelace, Untitled, 1996
Now this one is a different character: a decent man who’s soft spoken, curious as hell, someone who has a huge amount of personal character, a very strong chin and thoughtful, serious eyes. He has a lot of determination. He’s someone who I would like to know. Striped suspenders. You have a cityscape outline on his t-shirt. The edge of his t-shirt is beautifully defined. I think this is one of my all-time favorite pieces. I like how the light is going from the left side to the right side. You see the right side has the contour of his face, and it has a dark edge from top to bottom. The left side has no edge because his face is turned a bit. Look at the way the eyelashes twinge out, with the eyelid hanging over. I really care about how you drew his eyes. You observed both what you saw and what you created as a character. He has a rough quality to him. There is so much passion. Congratulations.
ML: Thank you.
JA: Let’s see. I’ve got a weird one right here. Let’s go to Louise McKenzie (1996). She’s pretty interesting. Is that a pet?
ML: A stuffed animal.
JA: You’ve drawn the fluff really well on this stuffed animal. It’s sitting on the bottom corner of the drawing! The woman is almost cross eyed; she’s so close to you and examining you, thinking about you. You’re getting a gaunt sense to the way her cheek bones go down into her cheeks. Can you tell me anything about her?
ML: I think she was an Alzheimer’s patient.
JA: That’s a very scary prospect.
ML: Right. It’s so mind-altering because these are people who are highly accomplished, and they don’t remember anything about who they are or their family members. I wanted to capture who this person was, and what their life was about.
Michelangelo Lovelace, Louise Mckenzie, 1996
JA: I just want to break off with something I just associated, which is a really important French artist from the 19th century, and his name is Gericault. He’s most famous for doing the 'Raft of the Medusa', which is up in the Louvre, but he also visited a psychiatric ward of, you could say, mad people back in the early 19th century. These were just horrendous places, where people were screaming and yelling. He spent a long time in this place and drew portraits of the people there. What I think is most notable about the portraits he drew is that he truly saw them as regular people, exactly like himself. None of them look like weirdos or monsters. He made them look like he was drawing their portrait. I want to bring that up as an homage to you, Michelangelo. There’s another lineage you should feel proud to be a part of - this lineage of artists who have tried to feel things about others and see them the way they really are, not as society sees them, but more so as they are inside, as they see themselves.
I’m admiring the way you outline the woman’s head; the hair is doing two things at once. There is a general movement in how the hair is parted and pulled back into a bun on her head. But, all around at the same time, there are loose, frayed hairs that are popping up and running around freely, hanging off her head, and you’re drawing that very clearly at the same time. I just want to tell you that I love it and I see it. I also love the brow, the lines in her forehead.
Michelangelo Lovelace, James Speed, 1996
I want to skip over to another odd portrait which is James Speed (1996). Do you remember drawing this one? You have a clearly defined striped shirt, that almost looks like it’s big heavy scarf, that’s wrapped around his head. The pattern is so powerful. He’s got these heavy eye lids which are almost closing. Then you’ve got the mouth, and you include the teeth showing through his open mouth. The beard is just coming in. You might’ve been just below him looking up, so the part closest to you seems large and the top of his head goes away in space. He looks powerful and thoughtful. I love all the lines around his brow and the two broad almond eyes that are huge but closed, but are looking up slightly, leaving space under the eye. If you squint, boy do you see this? Your drawing is so strong, your handling of the light and the dark. It’s very powerful.
As you know, we’re in the middle of this pandemic with the coronavirus, and the most vulnerable place to be in the world is any kind of habilitation institution such as a nursing home, where people are often not in control of their lives. It’s a known thing that all over the country, many people who have died were living in nursing homes. So, it’s something we can all think about.
ML: Right, we can’t ignore them like they don’t exist. When it first reached this country, it started in a nursing home in Seattle. Then it started spreading and spreading. I’ve been dealing with health issues of my own, and they wanted to put me in a nursing home for my recovery. My wife said, “No, you ain’t going to a nursing home. You’re going home.”
JA: This is just a wonderful testament to you at the moment, that you spent so much time drawing every one of the visitors that you could get to sit for you. It looks like you had everyone there sitting for you. I tried to choose images that I liked, and I just couldn’t do it. Every face that I see is so full of serious inquiry, you are really looking at every person. No matter how different each person was, you see them very clearly. I want to thank you for that, for what you did. Now, the rest of the world can see these and think about them. I love to look at them in two ways. I love to look at all of them at once on a big page, you can run around and get a broad impression. The immediate impression of how the light and dark is so clearly drawn on each face. Then, you make it larger and begin to feel the smaller things, which make it special to that person.
Can we go to Robert Wright (1996) for a second? Michelangelo, if this isn’t one of the most wonderful drawings of them all, I don’t know what is. It’s seriously drawn, meaning that the sense of dark lines and the form is outlined so strongly in this drawing and the character of this person is perfect. The lips are clearly drawn. Is that a beret on his head?
ML: Yes, we call that an apple hat.
JA: I love it. You get the form, the person there, but then you start deepening things. His glasses have those safety lines on them, to keep them from falling off. That’s a weird detail! It looks like that line in the frame, it has that same curvy line that the frame has. He’s matter of fact. He’s there with you; he trusts you. You get the feeling that he’s there all the way. He’s giving you his time; he’s not rushing you. He’s giving you total focus in this drawing. I love that you drew around the lips to make an exact shape, and then defined the upper part of his lip and the nose. We see Robert Wright from the fourth floor. It’s almost right in the center of the page but not quite. He’s kind of looking off, but towards us. We see his gaze exactly.
ML: He was one of those patients who was always encouraging me, who was willing to sit there and talk to me. He was very pleased when he saw it.
Michelangelo Lovelace, Robert Wright, 1996
JA: I think of you, and I think of someone who is very real, and who has dedicated his whole life to making this body of work, and I love that you’re in Cleveland all this time.
ML: There’ve been many days when you wonder if what you’re doing is meaningful. You just do it because you love it and you have some burning desire that keeps you working.
JA: I came to your show at Fort Gansevoort and I saw these incredible master works, these cityscapes, but I didn’t know you did a series of portrait drawings in this institution where you worked for 30 years. This is deep.
Another connection I’m making is with a Brazilian artist, Aleijadinho, a sculptor who was the son of a white carpenter and an African slave, and he made wood sculptures of religious figures and saints. He decorated the churches, and he had terrible physical ailments, where he became very handicapped. He suffered immensely in his lifetime. But, he kept working, and he is considered one of the most important sculptors in the history of Brazil. I went to see his work and he did many large sized wooden sculptures of religious scenes. His name in Portuguese means “Little Cripple”.
ML: You really hit this all on the head. When I draw, I do it by instinct. I don’t have the academic understanding of a lot of the things I do. But to hear you explain it in the way you just did, this is the way you want people to see when you’re working with just a simple pen or pencil. You want to get your subject to come through, so the viewer can understand what you’re trying to express. You just described it better than I could.
JA: You’re so good. It’s a mystery with art. We don’t know. Nobody knows. But you’ve got it. And I’m very fond of that piece, Intersection of 79th St and Cedar. I’m never going to forget that painting.
ML: I’m very pleased that most of the work in that show I had worked on for years trying to develop it and figure it out.
JA: This group is like a discovery for a lot of people. They didn’t know about you making these drawings. When did the gallery first see them?
ML: I first showed them to Adam last year. I dug into my private stash of drawings that I had done over the years because he said he wanted to see some of it, so that’s when I first pulled them out and he saw them.
JA: This is a treasure. Congratulations.
ML: Thank you. I’m happy that these are getting exposure. Especially during this time, the people deserve it.
JA: The people in that nursing home where you were working, they are at risk right now.
ML: Yes, I know.
JA: It’s a serious risk.
ML: I was at work before I got sick on January 5th and went to the ER. I was working at a nursing home and you try to give your all because you hope that somebody will care about you in the same way. So, I try to care about each patient as if they’re my family, no matter where they come from. Not too long ago, in November, someone did a drawing of a patient and someone else came along and scratched it up with a pen. My unit manager came to me and asked if I could redraw it without the scratches on it. I took it home and drew another copy of it and took it back to her the next day and she was just blown away. She said, “How much?! What do you charge? I’ll pay whatever you want!” And I said, “No, nothing,” and she bought everyone’s lunch for the day. He got his picture back with no scratches and was happy.
Long before I had any recognition, these were the people who were encouraging me to take it there with my art and do what I do, so they became my subjects.
JA: They’re variants of others who they also represent – other people in places such as yourself. You are with something that’s in common with many others. It’s going to mean a lot to people when they see these drawings. Congratulations.
ML: Means a lot, John. It means a lot.
JA: It means a lot to me, you know. I am really proud to be on the phone with you. It is such an honor. We can both thank Adam for making a lot of these things happen. He cares. He really goes to all lengths to pursue the things he cares about, to make sure things happen. I really appreciate that about him.
ML: Me too.
JA: He’s a friend of the artist.
ML: You spend your whole life hoping to run into somebody who cares about your art and cares about you as an artist, and our relationship has been nothing but a wonderful experience.
Well, thank you. This has been amazing.
JA: My pleasure, it has made my day. I do hope to talk to you soon. Artists appreciate each other.
ML: We’re walking the same journey. You told me about Martin Wong at my opening, so I went and bought his book and I’ve been reading it over time. I looked through it and have gotten a better understanding of the things we have in common, so I look forward to looking at these other artists. I appreciate you 100 percent. Thank you so much.