I'm in it now.

Charis Carmichael Braun, Between 23rd Ely and Queens Plaza,
Dec 3, 2009, pen on paper, 6x9in.

My husband was deliberating the merits of pursuing a job away from the City. I was meditating on something a friend had said:

"People who leave New York don't miss the life they had in New York. They miss the life they thought they could have had in New York."

I thought about this project, how I hadn't started it yet and how difficult it would be to complete if I left the weaving web of the subway tunnels and sifting streets of the city blocks and the many, many colors and shapes and sizes and spirits of people I wouldn't be able to see again... I considered abandoning the hope that I would find kindred spirits among them - finding a connection I could have had.

But we haven't left yet.

And I haven't started the project, really, yet. (Well, kindof.)

Almost...but not quite.

Riding the subway home, I have 45 minutes to watch lines on a page, the blackness blurring by, the inside of my eyelids, or other people.

Charis Carmichael Braun, Between 23rd-JacksonHts/RsvltAve, 
2/1/10, pen on paper, 6x9in.

With the great variety of persons in NYC, I'm constantly looking to see each individual within the "huddled masses" - measuring their features against the "Academy Norm/Ideal." Sometimes I sketch them and hope they don't identify me... but once I became fascinated with one woman's hands. She was reading a NY Post, and since hands are a weak point for me in my drawing, I concentrated on sketching them the whole way home in their many different gestures of holding the paper. She seemed inherently uncomfortable, even just holding the paper. She didn't notice I was sketching her - I sensed a weakness in her - but felt a strong urge to show her my sketches and tell her how beautiful her hands are. (Her hands reminded me of my sister's.)

But who says that kind of stuff without being creepy?

As I was drawing, I hemmed and hawed about it, and finally decided that if I let her go, I might never see her again. I had to give her my number and ask her if she'd pose for me. I ripped a page out of my sketch book, wrote my phone number and when the subway stopped, followed her up the stairs... and finally touched her gently on the shoulder to ask her. I gave her my number, telling her I was an artist and would love to draw her beautiful hands. I don't know if I'll ever get to draw her again - I had to ask... and I almost missed my stop!