St. Mark’s Coffeehouse, Denver, CO

Life Drawing Sketches, August 2019

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St. Mark’s CoffeeHOUSE

St. Mark’s Coffeehouse, located on 17th Ave, between Race St. and Vine St. in uptown Denver, is a favorite spot for local Denverites and those visiting. The coffeeshop and its adjacent bar, The Thin Man, has been at this location for a couple of decades. When I was in graduate school, and sometime between 2010-2013, I often studied here into the late night.

My life drawing sketches from 2010 to 2019 were up on the walls for the month of August in 2019.

A description of the series is as follows, from 2019:

These works are representative from hundreds of sketched poses from various life drawing sessions in Denver and Aurora over the course of 9 years. The poses lasted from one minute to 20 minutes. These pieces were experiments with charcoal, ink, and/or oil pastel, on inexpensive newsprint.

The drawings do not convey any particular message; they were merely observations of what was in front of me in the allotted time frame. The purpose was to find adequacy and seek perfection. Yet, each drawing, reflecting my emotional state at the time, felt imperfect, raw, and incomplete. After one newsprint pad was used up, they collected dust for years, hoping to be forgotten.

Exposing these pieces is a result of confrontation with perfectionism

Over time, these pieces change form.

These drawings, first completed on newsprint and glued to the surface of plywood, have degraded, peeled, and discolored over time. Yet, it is in the nature of these materials to change.

I am not sure when these drawings were considered complete. Was it the instant the figures were on paper? Or over the course of the years as they were sitting in the sketchbook? Or in 2019 when they were displayed at St. Mark’s Coffeehouse? Or now, as they sit either in my studio, in people’s homes, or in storage? Or discarded or reused for some other purpose?