Ann and what she loves

This painting looked different a while back. But we painted over it because it didn't really get to the heart of what we think about Ann. Some things you might like to know about Ann are that she is part of a crew and rows competitively on the Schuylkill River . She's a painter and one of her paintings is one of Philadelphia's largest murals -- on the side of the William Way Center. She teaches drawing and design. She's actually our most glamorous friend. She loves people. She loves to think. She loves Ed, Nick, Diana and the rest of her family.

We give it another try

Independently of each other, we both thought thoughts of Knox and boats. We don't even know if he owns one, but he sometimes makes boat-like sculptures.

...but first

Here are our first drawings of Knox. If you want to see what he really looks like, visit our post here.

It is Knox who pointed out to us in a recent phone call that the two of us have fun and decide to call it art.

And furthermore...

In spite of the fact that we crammed so much into the previous Ava drawings we still didn't think we got it all about her. Ava is a teacher and Ava projects confidence and vulnerability all at once.

Imagining Ava in pencil and ink

We found out that Ava was a rich font of drawing material for us. So much so that we tried to squeeze everything in in each drawing. Here's what fueled us: Ava's car, Ava's sculptures, Ava's rock collection, Ava's house, Ava's badminton, Ava's trips to Maine, Ava's energy.

Drawing Ava

These are some drawings we did of Ava based on our miserable photographs.

Imagining Ava

This painting of Ava is our best shot of her. We attempted a photo shoot and came away disappointed. Between our shaky hands and shooting without flash in a dark room everything was blurry and dark and pixillated. This painting is the triumph of imagination over mechanics.

We think of Ava as glamorous.

What Ditta cares about

Frank, Julian, and Max and the rest of her family. Space, light, order, photography, sewing, words and poetry, making artist's books, Philadelphia, drawing, paper, people.

What Steve cares about

Roberta, Oona, Max, Stella, and the rest of his family. His work writing and researching in game theory, logic modeling, etc. Politics, Daily Kos, information, jokes, thinking deep thoughts, walking, food and wine, solitude.

What Murray cares about

Libby, Minna, Alex, Mary and the rest of his family, South Philly, Octavius V. Catto, writing, television, movies, news, the facts, Tastykakes, and most of all, people in general.

Drawing Ditta 2

For some reason we thought perhaps we ought to try for something more realistic. We know we have a reputation for disdain of academic realism. Nonetheless we thought we'd work from photographs and try to catch a likeness. We like the results but it wasn't enough.

Drawing Ditta

Inspired by our visit to Ditta (see previous post) we re-imagined her in pencil and ink. Roberta is the inkster and Libby wields the pencil. We couldn't figure out how to do these together -- and we didn't even want to; after all we each had our own Ditta.

This is Roberta's third drawing (above).


This is Libby's third drawing.

Ditta has great hair and in a way Roberta's and Libby's drawings are homages to her hair.

Imagining Ditta

So here we will tell you about Ditta, a poet and photographer. When we painted Ditta we put her in her old house where her bulletin board was a big presence. Ditta sometimes takes photographs of the bulletin board and to us it was such a significant part of her life that we put it in our painting (above).


After we made the painting Ditta moved into a huge converted industrial building in South Philly. When we visited her we brought her bread and salt and took photographs of her (above) and her cat (below).