Log0002
Tucson
With the seasons changing the wet winter gave way to an ideal spring and taking advantage of the conditions we had made several trips out to the desert to hunt for colour. The “superbloom” they called it. For the final of these trips, a group of us had gone further afield into New Mexico to see what we could find.
In this foreign country I am beginning to appreciate the desert more, and people in it. With or without blooms, heat or cold, these vast plains hold a unique emptiness that I find inspiring. Why do people come to live out here? And perhaps more importantly, why do they stay?
That morning we’d broken camp early and hit the trail before the temperature lifted. If it were colours and flora we came to see, then we got it. Between the tall saguaro cacti there was an abundance of vibrant vegetation. The variety of unique flowers captured my attention constantly along our climb and right through to the final descent.
Escaping the midday heat we’d come back out of the desert and pulled up into a brewery in Tucson. We had a layer of dust and sweat covering us and given the relative quiet of the morning we opted to sit outside.
While waiting for our burger and beers I’d idly scanned the room, setting eyes on an old man in the back corner. The main thing I remember was his eyes, long, empty… lonely, even though he had some type of company. He had a nondescript cap and loose hanging features. His big build hunched over the stool as he engaged in just enough conversation to satisfy his comrades. But his gaze was elsewhere. I wondered after his story. Who were the people he was with. The 19-year-old girl with them? How did she fit into this cohort. And the old 1950s Ford pick-up parked out front, did that belong to him?
Even with no words shared I often get fixated on particular characters. Sometimes it is the composition, other times the expression or mood. Often, I don’t even have a good idea why, other than they look like the sort to have a story. This man in the back corner had that effect.
Throughout the drive back West I continued to ponder the people in these places. Holding out in the dry desert. Surrounded by heat and cacti. What stuck with me from the trip was less about the beauty in the coloured desert, and more about the darker shades in a Tucson brewery. A no less interesting scene, but very much juxtaposed to that crisp morning in the saguaros.
As it happened, I drew this from a portrait I had already drawn of him. Not from the photographic reference I first took. The intermediary portrait didn’t have any foreground, so I decided to add the empty pint glass just because it seemed right. Afterwards when I had returned to the original photo reference, I was surprised to see that there was actually an empty pint in the picture. Subconsciously, I’d placed the glass back in the scene, even though the intermediate portrait contained no reference of a glass at all. Sometimes the most artistic composition ends up being the plain reality right in front of you.