A Sacred Place

This is a new beginning.  In an ideal world I would be in Rome today getting married to my Denise and preparing as they say: "to live happily ever after."  Well, this is not an ideal world and that did not happen.  As hard as it is for me to go on without her,  I must.  And so I made the decision today to go back to the beginning and do what I love to do.  I chose to sketch a view of Gate of Heaven Church from Broadway.  Denise and I often joked with people by saying we were married at Gatey.  Of course this was true (she would never, ever tell a lie; she was incapable of it).  We were in fact married there, each to different people.  So I felt it was the right place to renew my love affair with art in this sacred place, the place of all my sacraments save one.

 Truth be told, it's not much of a drawing and if I wanted to make excuses I have plenty, but I don't.  Instead I will say that like all sketches, this is a personal record of my feelings on this day.  A sketch is a joy not because it looks exactly like something or someone but because it allows the artist the opportunity to have fun with the most primitive of tools, the line.  When you see a child blissfully making a drawing with whatever tool at hand there is no self-consciousness, no competition or search for approval.  There is pure unadulterated love for the process of creation.  The result is not even a concern.  While I can't say I don't care at all about the results of my drawings ; I have been at this game of art and life too long for that, I am striving to recapture the childlike spirit and fun of this hobby.  So, as I said, today is a new beginning.