The Man Whose Head Expanded

I normally try to stay away from portraits of rock stars, writers, artists, and other famous people I admire. There's just too much baggage involved in hero worship. I had to make an exception for Mark E. Smith, longtime evil genius behind The Fall. The man has a face like no other. Granted, many of the distinctive features of his face are the result of decades of rampant alcoholism that should not be imitated or romanticized. And yet, despite all this, the man still managed to make "Hex Enduction Hour" and "This Nation's Saving Grace." The mind reels.

Back to the Seattle Asian Art Museum

How great is it to live within easy walking distance of Volunteer Park? That was a rhetorical question, of course. The relative greatness of proximity to enjoyable places is a very difficult thing to measure, although I'm sure someone at Google is working on it. The highlight of any visit to Volunteer Park is the Seattle Asian Art Museum, which has a lot of interesting work on the walls (I'm a big fan of the Japanese wood blocks) and tons of sculpture just begging to be sketched. This particular piece is of horse from the Tang period (insert astronaut joke here), dated around the 7th or 8th century. Thinking about how much time that really is and the fact that some human being's hands actually made this thing that I am standing in front of more than 1,000 years later makes me feel totally insignificant. I hope some piece of my life stays around that long, even if it's just the styrofoam I throw in the landfill.

Note: I realize that the bottom of the stand is falling off the page in a really odd way. This is because I violated one of the first rules that any beginning art teacher will tell you and did not fully plan out my composition before I started work. Mea culpa.