Felix D'Eon

Diary ~ New York #1

February, 2006

 

I went to New York to check out galleries and the Met for a week or so. Also, some of my best friends live there, whom I met in San Francsico but have since gone - I miss them dreadfully. So I took myself off for Winter in New York, dutifully intending to spend as much time in museums checking out art as possible. I got a little distracted by the clubs and boys, though, and found myself nursing hangovers during the day a bit too much to truly appreciate Goya or Vermeer. I had an amazing time, met a great many interesting and wonderful people, and intend to go back this summer for at least a few weeks, to work on some art projects with the cute New York boys, and to spend some serious time in the great New York museums, studying the work of the Master's I love so much.

In the photograph I am standing on the top of the Rockefeller Center, with Empire State Building behind me. Below, is an ice covered lake in the park, which impressed me, since I've never seen a lake completely covered in ice before. It was just starting to melt, and broke off the edge - it was floating towards the center of the lake, and breaking up in chunks. I was fascinated, and sat there staring at it for a long time. I've never been to the East Coast in the winter, before. In fact, when I got off the plane it started to snow; I was with my traveling companion Edgar, and I was very confused. "I think there are cherry blossoms falling on me," I said. "No wait, its ash! There's a fire!" and only on my third try did I realize it was snow. Edgar, who lives in New York, was very annoyed.

In spite of hangovers and very late nights making out with boys, I still did manage to clock some hours at the museums. I spent a day at the Frick and another two at the Met. Above is one of the master studies I did; its a Gainsborough portrait I fell in love with at the Frick. On the bottom are notes I took about the artist's technique, which I will apply later to my own work. Actually, I'm thinking of starting a life size nude oil soon, so I spent a lot of time studying those more ambitious pieces.

Above is Neil, whom I met at a party in Brooklyn. It was a caveman theme party, which I unfortunately didn't realize before hand, or I would have packed a fur loincloth in my baggage. I also would have brought a camera, had I known it was going to be so fun. As it was, the party seemed immediately strange, as the people dancing were doing the wildest dances I had ever seen, to perfectly conventional music. I was a little taken aback to see such wild gyrations in skimpy loincloths to “The Smiths,” but someone told me the party was mostly attended by professional dancers, and when I realized this, I suddenly saw the logic to their movements. Most of the dancers were really quite talented, and moved beautifully. The party was wonderful. One of the dancers, upon learning I was a figurative artist, volunteered to model for me then and there, so he got up on a stool, striped naked (not that he had much to take off), and struck a pose; the host kindly supplied me with paper and pencils and an impromptu drawing session was held. The guests wound up decorating the model by wrapping ribbons around him, putting oven mitts on his hands, and with numerous necklaces wrapped around his arms and thighs. I unfortunately don’t have the drawing, or even a picture of it, since I didn’t bring my camera, and I gave it to him upon completion. But he said he will model for me again when next I visit. Neil, in the photo above, was the host of the party, and he agreed to come over and model for me the next day. The photos on this page are the result of that session.

Initially we drew some pictures, which I will post later, but then I asked if he would be interested in modeling for photographs, and he complied. He has an amazing personality, and such wisdom in his body – he is so conscious of it, and every movement seems the most natural and perfect embodiment of some bodily thought. I have never seen him perform, but I am looking forward to watching him on stage this summer. I had him pose in the bathroom of the hotel I was staying at – it had this great glass shower, and plenty of space to move around.

 

At the end I joined him in the shower and we started to make out. Edgar, who was there took these pictures, which are continued on the next diary entry.