Mint tea and sheesha: this week's drawings

On Thursday evening, after an appointment at the Jewish Hospital in Cote-des-Neiges, J. and I found ourselves wanting something to eat rather than driving home in the rush hour traffic. We entered a small Moroccan restaurant and sheesha bar -- not a usual place for us -- where we lounged on cushioned banquettes, ate delicious kefta and poulet grillades, drank mink tea sent to our table by the observant manager, and shared a sheesha for two hours amid the Arab men and a few women who were talking, smoking the sweet apple-soaked tobacco, drinking coffee, playing with their phones and computers, and casting an occasional eye at the Arab music videos on big screens. It was uncharacteristic for us, and deeply relaxing, and we thought about this cold city and mixed-up neighborhood where, as in old Damascus or Jerusalem, the Hassids and less conservative Jews and Arabs and Christians actually manage to live together in peace.

These are the last flowers that were blooming in a pot on our terrace, and I don't even know what they are - some sort of salvia, maybe? They're tiny and purple. I cut the last of them and brought them inside one evening earlier this week. Yesterday we saw the first snow flurries, so it won't be long.

And here's a jar of comb honey, some tea, and some almonds. I guess I just wanted to make things hard for myself - drawing thick honey with wax in it, or a cup of tea, using a fountain pen, is not exactly easy! Some kind of wonky circles here, but I like the drawing anyway.

I'm not interested at all in making illustrations, or worrying about accuracy: as a commercial artist and graphic designer I've done enough of that for one lifetime. What I'm after in these drawings is the impression of things, a feeling, and an interesting arrangement of shapes -- and the ability to capture that quickly and freshly, without making a drawing that looks labored or fussy. A true sketch. Looking back through my sketchbooks I can see a lot of progress since I started doing this regularly, a few years ago, as well as a lot of experimenting with different media and styles. Nothing feels "fixed" (and I hope that persists), except that the practice is becoming part of my life; I enjoy it, I'm happy when a drawing works out well, and I don't get upset when they don't. And I like having this different sort of record of my life. Drawings bring places, people, events and emotions back to me in a way that a photograph can't, probably because of the time spent doing them: there's an awareness of yourself as part of a particular scene that persists along with the marks that your hand makes on the paper. Anyway -- it's been worth the effort and a lot of bad drawings to get to a point where it feels like fun.

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Comments

[Marie]

Inspiring Beth!The drawing but also the attitude.
Marie

[Roderick Robinson]

As you lounged among the cushions "odalisque" sprang to mind. Glad I checked the meaning and it really won't do at all. But on the basis of the word itself, and a dim wholly imprecise guess at the meaning (not a characteristic of the people who comment on The Cassandra Pages) might it be allowed a fleeting resting place here in your comment box?

[Rachel Barenblat]

Beautiful, Beth -- both the drawings and the reminder that a kind of diverse coexistence is indeed possible.

(And: I love the smell of nargila / sheesha smoke. Ever since my first trip to Amman in 2002, though I probably also encountered it as a teenager in Egypt in 1989...)

[Hattie]

These are full of life. So nice and free. How lucky you are to live in a cosmopolis like Montreal; even if it does get cold there seem to be many indoor diversions.

[Duchesse]

"I don't get upset when they don't". Lots to learn there, thank you.