opera + charcoal

I was just searching through an archive of my old artwork in search of my henna freehand designs because I want to design my next tattoo based on them. Then I came across my old figure drawings from college.

I remember that figure drawing class. I used to listen to opera in my walkman (that word sounds ancient) as we'd sit in the darkened half circle on our drawing benches. I loved the smell of that room, and the feel of the wood which held me. I would carefully set all of my charcoals out, tape a fresh sheet of paper to my clipboard, and press 'play'. Those songs used to surge my heart and so often I'd just let the tears run down my face as the song would climax, freezing my head and sending chills over my flesh... sometimes I would drop my charcoal and grasp my headphones, close my eyes and press them deeper around my ears. At those moments no one else in the room or world existed except for me and those divine voices. Those were some of my strongest and happiest moments. The rush of the charcoal on paper, watching it blacken my pale hands, the darkness that engulfed the room.

I was invisible until one girl sat next to me one day and told me she used to just watch me and was determined to be my friend. "Oh" I replied half disturbed by this. We became friends quickly despite this and I moved to Italy with her a few months later until she went psychotic on me and I kicked her out, but I don't wish to digress.

Anyway my professor used to circulate slowly around the class and I'd feel him standing beside me suddenly and glance up at him to watch his mouth move as he looked at me, then I'd drop my charcoal and lift my headphones off of my ears and he'd bend down and say "Ah Norma, beautiful opera Lorena" and he'd tell me how his mother used to pack him and his siblings up and take them to the opera when he was a young boy in Italy.

Every Sunday they'd go and she would make a picnic basket for them to eat outdoors later. They didn't have a lot of money but the opera was one of his mother's greatest pleasures in life. They'd sit in the commoners section and watch their mother weep to the angelic voices.

My professor used to enjoy standing behing me and detecting which opera I listened to each day and he was always right when he made a guess. It used to embarass me that he could hear them that clearly, I had the volume maxed out on that dinky yellow "sports" walkman. Sick.

I remember the day I drew this one. I was miserably depressed and her position made my eyes light up because I wanted to crawl into a ball and dissolve like her.

I hated the insuffferable loneliness I was experiencing in my suffocating and abusive relationship with the Greek. I had lost over 40 pounds and was a rail the 4 years I dated him. I would make food then sit and cry over it and take it directly to the trash can, empty it out and then go and lay down in this fetal position. Deep down I knew that dickwad didn't care about me so I wrote out "never cared" along her back. I used to do that a lot, fold and blend words into the figures because the words would just be screaming repetitvely in my head until I released them there. It's funny how your mind connects memories, or what stimulates certain memories.