My dream is a wispy balcony, some cool juice which is endless in supply, pineapple and lychee flavors for a calm afternoon. A full kit of watercolors, oils, gouaches, pens, inks, chalks, brushes and stains … a full set, yet I will use none of these. For this balcony, this setting, is for pencils, pencils … in perfect array. They have to come in tens, ten of each. B’s, H’s E’s. Burnt chalk pencils, everything, capable of every tone and shadow imaginable, it all has to be there. Then the same thing, but in color. Berol Turquoise brand color pencils, the very best. I have to be able to pick out a distinct color as if working from a palette on computers. Enough tones to stimulate creative color codes, but not a disastrously huge amount.

A light breeze, a brand new teak easel, so new you can smell the wood. And paper, but not any old paper, 270 gram, soft, stretched Italian watercolor paper.

I’ll sit back, on a swivel chair, and listen to music, pianos and violins, thinking where I should put my first stroke. Then I’ll pick up a 2b, and start on the eyes, stop short of perfection and move on to the rest of the form, knowing that I will return to give the final piece of soul with the completion of those eyes. The drawing begun, I wouldn’t finish it that day, letting the unfinished details to give me anticipation for the next sitting.

Then I’d return, let the figure tease me, make me use the eraser from time to time and then beg me to draw it exactly how I had done before. Each shadow would call for a second take, each take creating a darker, more vivid image.

Then it would be finished, the canvas perched on the easel as a portal that into an invisible world behind.

That’s my dream for art.