Today was sketchcrawl day but I didn't sketch. I sat in a library reading a book about the art theory of dialogical practice. I was itching to dialogue, to talk, to wander, to connect with people but instead I read.

For about four hours I said nothing but read and since this was a public library, I listened in to the world happening around me. The swirl of a flirting couple talking about crackheads, the woman looking for Spanish language magazines, the kid whose ipod was too loud. I liked them more than the book. The book tried too hard maybe. So many footnotes, so many citations and in the end I thought maybe the writer missed the real passion of what he was writing about. The art he chose to consider is art that strives to connect with non-art audiences, yet he wrote in such a specialized way, I wanted to engage with the non-art audiences around me instead of working through the book. I found less than what I was hoping for, but I'm not so sure I am the author's ideal reader since I am still pretty put-off by big art arguments, by the closed world of the contemporary art club, by the relentless emphasis on the ideas of a small circle of theory thinkers... Oh I am trying to give up the grump...

Luckily, I break easily and often and my library has a large collection of magazines from October 1935 and I had a reason to pour over them. Nestled in a New Yorker was a delightful poem by a woman named Mildred about an escalator. I found in those couple of magazines, with their color car ads and worrisome headlines and cartoons, more than I was looking for.

Nothing is wasted and I did learn something; next time I'll draw.

take care,
Rachael