Random Musing No. 1

The human eye has a range of 120°, mostly peripheral vision, compared to the camera’s typical 200° or more. That is why the figures sometimes seem distorted at the edges of a photograph. We make up for this seeming deficit by moving our focus (in movements called “saccades”) around a scene to build up a gestalt awareness of its appearance.

A painting, curated by human intelligence, is superior in every respect to a photograph, except for how long it takes to make it. If cameras took three hours to create the exact same image as they do now in a split second, there would be no question as to which medium people would choose when they needed an image recorded.

Mike II

Odd, somewhat frustrating day yesterday. I decided to go further afield and ask panhandlers around the Commons to pose for me, but when I got there, nobody was panhandling. I saw plenty of obvious homeless/distressed people but nobody whom I could ask “Can I paint you while you beg?” I suspect the Boston cops have put the kibosh on the cup-shaking I remember from the old days.

I finally gave up and headed into Cambridge. Got a burger at a restaurant and on my way out a young black women (her supervisor standing a few feet away) stopped me and gave me a canned spiel about her involvement in something with Young Entrepreneur in the title. If she met her goal she got a thousand dollars. “I’m looking for a hand up, not a hand out,” she told me, repeatedly. I managed to pin down her product–three, six or nine magazine subscriptions–and after some wheedling, the price: $79.95. I said, “Look, I’ll be happy to donate $20 for whatever cause you’re pushing but there’s no way I’m going to spend $80.” Without a word she turned on her heel and walked away. When I left the restaurant (what were they doing in there anyway?) the two of them walked out behind me and proceeded to discuss her interaction with me. “If he’d offered $30 we might have been able to do something,” said the supervisor.

I now went in search of a model. I was turned down by two separate panhandlers I approached, a new experience for me. I finally was heading over to a spot I’d scoped out as a landscape site, when I saw Mike.

Mike had a cardboard sign and was working the cars stopped at the stop light where Garden Street merged with Mass Ave., weaving his way through traffic. I had painted Mike in 2012 but at the time I had decided to try something more full figure and I didn’t really have a portrait per se. I called him over and we made a deal. He hid his sign away somewhere, then met me at a nearby park bench. Mike didn’t talk much, certainly not about himself. Various people stopped off to chat and three of the street people said “Paint me next!” Feast or famine.

Here’s Mike’s painting from 2012: