Blog
The Ostrich Hunter, Shark City
Oct 14, 2010 — 1 comment
A couple of strange digital illustrations for your amusement.
Building Completed, Indian Heads Look On
Aug 31, 2010
Last night they held a dedication event for the building for which I sculpted the Indian Head (click here). As you can see, the building turned out really well, I definitely like the look of it. There are seven total castings of the head at various places around the structure, if you look closely in the pictures you can see a couple of them. Next time you’re in the neighborhood of Akron, Ohio, be sure to stop by and check it out.
Hans
May 12, 2010 — 7 comments
I met Hans in a bar in Florence, Italy in 2003. On first appearance, Hans is most easily categorized as “Awesomely-Bearded German Homeless Guy,” but this broad stroke assumes too much, or more accurately, assumes too little. Hans is extremely intelligent, speaks multiple languages, and has for the most part chosen his life on the streets. He wanders around, meeting people, occasionally making money working as a model for the countless painters rotating in and out of Florence, notably Daniel Graves (below). He’s a strange and fascinating dude, always down for a thoughtful conversation about societal structures, human race/religion-based interactions, anything. He’s very much aware of his place in this plane of existence, and also extremely friendly to anyone with whom he happens to interact.
Hans by Daniel Graves
Over the 6 months that I was in Italy, my roommate and I would see him pretty frequently; with his place of residence being the front step of a church right by our apartment and his favorite outdoor wine bar in the alley right around the corner, he was usually in the neighborhood. That is, until one day he decided to go to Germany to track down his sister, whom he hadn’t seen nor spoken to in 30+ years. He planned to be up and back within two weeks, his friend who was on business in the area would pick him up on his way down to Italy. But at two weeks, Hans didn’t show. After two months, we were all pretty concerned that something bad had happened, that he had been arrested or killed by some deranged homeless guy with a broken bottle on a train.
The semester ended, my friends went back to America, and I left for a two week, semi-spastic voyage across Europe. I returned to Florence the day before I was to fly back to America. That last day I spent wandering around: I went to the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo and drew the final Michelangelo sculpture that I would see (to see my Michelangelo Odyssey click here), and walked through a few of my favorite spots in the city. On my final walk back to my apartment, I decided to take my preferred back alley route, a route which passed by Hans’ wine bar, just to check one last time, on the off chance that Hans had materialized. Bam. There he was, sitting in his usual spot, enjoying a glass of wine. At first I was mildly shocked, but he acted like nothing was even remotely out of the ordinary, that he had been there his whole life. We talked for a while, I sheepishly asked if I could immortalize him with a photo (topmost image), and then I said goodbye. He responded the way he always did when he parted ways with anyone: “I’ll see you around.” There is something about that phrase that is perfectly tuned with his existence, his way of life, and I always felt a strange admiration for his use of it.
A few years later, my girlfriend bought me a subscription to American Artist Magazine for Christmas. As she excitedly presented me with the first of 12 issues, I looked at it, then at her, and stupidly blurted out, “Uh, I know that guy.” There was Hans, glaring at me from the cover of the magazine in Daniel Graves portrait (below, click here for full size). Consider the absurdity of the odds of this scenario playing out in this way. Of all the gifts she could have given me (a third blowgun?), of all the magazines she had to choose from, of all the issues of that specific magazine that have been printed before and after, it happens that she stumbles on this specific one. She had no idea. Baffling.
Another couple of years pass, bringing us to a few weeks ago (we didn’t skip over anything that interesting). I was playing around with the Streetview feature on google maps (which is fantastic, and can consume many hours for a person like me). I was looking around for the apartment I lived in while I was in Florence, and bam, there’s Hans. Sitting on the street 500 feet from the patio where I took that last photo of him, 300 feet from where I lived. Again, I was baffled. Sadly, he looks pretty rough, but it’s clearly him, the Graves portrait taped to the wall behind him, next to an appropriately placed question mark. I never saw him dressed in anything but his (filthy) blue vest and blazer, to see him looking like the generic insane homeless guy is very disappointing, I’m wondering if his lifestyle is starting to catch up with him. And yes, I understand that seeing a person who lives on the street on Streetview doesn’t exactly register a high number on the richter scale, but still, the odds are insane. Search for “16 Via dello Sprone, Firenze, Italia” on googlemaps, he’s still right there. Then, look everywhere else, look on every street in the nation, and I guarantee you won’t see a single person you know.
Some day I will go back to Florence. It seems natural that the first person I see when I cross the Arno will be Hans. He’s apparently some strangely ubiquitous, omnipresent force, and I will be happy to see him.