“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.”

“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.”

“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.’”

“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.”

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: 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.

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!

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.

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.

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.