After a week of cold rain, most New Yorkers would kill somebody—anybody!—to spend some time on a tropical beach. Artist Danny Gregory just returned from the Dominican Republic, and brought back a book of drawings and watercolors.
Gallery
The Color of Water
Read the essay
*The running guy appeared at the pool later, and removed his shoes and then slid, sweat-soaked clothes and all, into the pool my family swims in. Nice.
She took off her face drape and left before I could draw her knees so I won’t waste any more time thinking about her.’
It’s not very easy to draw and worry at the same time. Jack’s head is one of the little ones out there bobbing in the surf and my memories of being little and afraid of the undertow keep dragging my eyes back and forth across the horizon to make sure he’s still there. He’s a far better swimmer than I was at his age so, instead of angsting about the sea, he is having fun. He waves to me now and then and comes back to the shoreline to tell me about a particularly awesome wave. Maybe if I chill I’ll draw better than this mess.’
People are usually so helpful to us at airports, going out of their way to accommodate Patti’s wheelchair but it’s been different here. Our seats aren’t together, they gave Patti an inaccessible window seat and were generally somewhere between indifferent and hostile throughout. We’d done our part, reserving in advance, explaining our needs, getting to the airport ridiculously early but it made no difference. Interesting that in general there’s a callousness toward disability here and at our hotel we’re not used to and I wonder if it’s cultural. People stare a lot and treat Patti as more ‘other’ than usual. Time to board.’
God, plane decor is vile.
Depressing, really that this is the scene and point of view that I have drawn and painted more than any other – not the foot hills of Tuscany or the rooftops of Paris or the beaches of Tahiti but the view from a midsection economy-class seat, midflight, tops of heads and overhead compartments.’
