Warhol Diaries
Here's a pencil sketch I had done recently to towards finishing off my nearly-filled 2008 sketchbook. It comes from one of my favorite books, The Andy Warhol Diaries. I pulled it down from the shelf last week, dusted it off and amused myself with some of the entries. As always, the pieces of his dictated life are so curious, Warhol had such an interesting life... so big in the jet-set New York art world, yet so normal with his various concerns for everyday human things. He seems so confidant and vulnerable at the same time.
Anyway, I thumbed through the photo-section, wowing at the art, music, and social celebrity circles of the seventies and eighties, when I rediscovered this great snapshot of Warhol with Paulina Poriskova and Ric Ocasek. It's just so odd, but I love best that there's this great feeling of warmth and casualness. (I also love very much that Paulina and Ric are still married...)
The Andy Warhol Diaries
by Andy Warhol, edited by Pat Hackett
There are cultural moments we would probably never learn about from any other source, like the time Truman Capote invited Warhol to tape a session with his psychiatrist. There are epiphanies (''And you know, I've come to realize lately that Diana Vreeland is just a person'') and crises of self-doubt (''Then I got the book of my old paintings out and saw all the clever things I used to do, and I just can't think of anything clever to do now.'')
There are also, like flashes from some incompletely buried object, occasional glimmerings of a person. Warhol mentions going to church quite regularly, an activity so incongruous with the persona he cultivated that it is tantalizing. He drops by the office of his magazine, Interview. He seems to get genuinely depressed by breakups with his boyfriends, and to be loyally concerned about the weight vicissitudes of Brigid Berlin, a superstar in some of his movies. He is terrified of illness and hospitals (he died in a hospital after a gallbladder operation).
NY Times Review by By EVA HOFFMAN
June 14, 1989
Labels: sketchbook
posted by Christine Norrie @ 12:08 PM
5 Comments:
As always, impressed.
I've had the same sketchbook for a few years now but I like the idea of having one for each year and trying to fill it.
Thx for sharing.
Tishaun
It all comes back to The Cars with you these days, doesn't it? Your posts are really making me miss Benjamin Orr.
-jim d.
Why the long face, Rick?
Battalion- I've got lots of sketchbooks that are half empty or supposedly "themed" and they were all sizes and fancy binding and it was annoying.
Last year, I picked up Canson's hardbound plain sketchbook in 9x6 and found it was a good fit. I use the sketchbooks for everything from thumbnails, to concept sketches, doodles, watercolors, whatever. I don't put pressure on myself anymore and it's worked out well and I have a ton of drawings all in one place.
Thank you for the nice note.
Chatterbox-
Yes, it does all come back to The Cars, so classic and good. Though, I try not to think of the solo careers, wayyy too 80s!
Manale-
Indeed, why the long face??
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