Drawings, Volume One

[Credit: Holland Brown]

The peak of my drawing output, as I’m sure it is with many of you fine readers, was in grade school. Having to sit down and “take notes” after some 40-year-old Queens public school teacher starts class by mangling through more than a dozen Chinese and Indian names isn’t enough to satisfy a 12-year-old’s mind. A lot of these teachers were lifelong residents of those same Queens neighborhoods they were teaching in (some had gone to the school where they worked), and were bitter about all the freaky-deaky immigrantes invading their zone.

Here’s a short story to demonstrate: My sixth-grade art teacher would regularly butcher the name of this Indian girl (who had a phonetic, easy-to-pronounce name) while checking the attendance. The student afterwards was named Jason King. He would read his name boldly and every so often exclaim, “Now that’s a REAL name!" I take some solace in the fact this was a 40-something loser teaching “art” in a Queens public school, and that he’ll most likely be dead soon. I used to be afraid of getting “in trouble” with these teachers, many of whom were undoubtedly bitter at their where there lousy careers went. Peace to the handful who had good intentions and were worn down by the system and the students. My fifth-grade teacher Mr. Newman had come from teaching in Bed-Stuy and, towards the end of the year, arranged a trip where we went to his old school that was super dilapidated and overcrowded to show us that we were “spoiled” because we went to a regular, crappy elementary school. Mr. Newman was fine by me.

Anyway, I've arranged a series of drawings from the last few years, some of which were featured on a “humor” blog I once contributed to with a half-dozen friends of mine. I’ve decided to analyze them after a few years to figure out what might have been going on in my headpiece at the time.

To set it off, here’s a drawing of mine from the seventh grade. It featured my (apparently) favorite motif at the time, a man with his skull opened to reveal his brain underneath.

I like that he has the same terrible haircut I was rocking at the time. Sick giant diamond implant atop the nose, another classy touch, along with the teen wolf facial hair.

“BANANAMAN”

“Bananaman” was loosely based on a dream I had where I had to dress up as a banana at a party. Perhaps it foreshadowed the years of professional back-up dancing I’d be doing for a living shortly afterwards? Apples and grapes are some of my least favorite fruits. They’re way too sweet. Maybe I’m carrying the “bittersweet” burdens of the past?

“ONE PANEL OF A RACIST GRAPHIC NOVEL”

In this particular panel of my unfinished graphic novel, the protagonist (undecided) is confronting a racist who's ready to fight. I have so many options at this point. Here are three examples:

1. Perhaps a group of Afro-Dominican baseball aficionados travel through the American South, their destination being the Louisville Slugger factory in Louisville, Kentucky. They get lost along the way, the car breaks down on a back road, and this asshole shows up.

2. Perhaps a group of Korean-American girls decide to go to the Ultra music festival in Miami and decide to drive from Queens to Florida. On a particularly desolate stretch one of the girls insists that she was to take a whiz and they pull over, when all fo a sudden this cockscker shows up.

3. Or, let’s say, I’m driving down to Georgia to write a novella on a fictional Indian drug dealer in “The Bluffs” neighborhood of Atlanta. On the way down, my car breaks down on a sparsely populated highway and I’m forced to hitchhike through the “back woods” of a rural part of the South where I run into this dickhead. Not sure what happens next, but it will undoubtedly be a deeply American lose-lose situation, ending with a lesson we’ve been taught since we were three and yet refuse to learn.

“TEEN QUEEN”

I started drawing proto versions of these highly refined, beautifully rendered characters in high school. They started off being in the yard of a house with a chimney with smoke coming out of it (one of my three most commonly drawn objects, along with fish swimming and the many-limbed tree). I decided with this drawing to add some action and make them get into a series of small, escalating disagreements before they maim and kill each other. The circle was eventually going to plead for them to stop the violence (AKA “choose to defuse”). When the circle’s pleas are ignored, it grows to fill the page and releases mega-brutality on one and all. It was going to be a really shitty, poorly drawn Dragonball Z.

“DAT AZZ”

This was inspired by a photo of a Klan rally. I suppose it could be about the persistent threat of racism, institutional or overt, and how it is always “coming for that ass.” Probably not, though. Those were supposed to be streaks of lightning in the back—not quite sure why they’re drawn horizontally.

“WELCOME”

I believe this incredible drawing was meant to be “political art” regarding gun violence? The “smiley face” was the veneer of American tolerance, but the violence is always right there, ready to rear its ugly head. If I had to update this, I would make the “WELCOME” rainbow-colored and it could be a statement about America’s growing acceptance of the LGBTQ community, but with the “rearing it’s ugly head/persistent homophobia” thing represented by the weapons. NOT MY BEST WORK.

“DARRYL”

This final image is a brief romantic interlude from my hard-hitting political work. A LIL’ SOMETHING FOR THE LADIES (if you will).

Dapwell is an artiste. He's on Twitter — @dapwell