I was confused when we first began the sketchbook project. I didn’t know whether I wanted to make it about the city or my feelings towards the city, then I realized I didn’t want to make it about either. Instead I decided to pinpoint exactly what I am constantly thinking about while maneuvering through the city, while tromping the streets with Lauryn Hill blaring through my headphones, while riding the trains and walking through alleyways. Even through all of the putrid scents and dogshit-embellished sidewalks, the bodega cats asleep on the bread I say wassup to, the chicken cutlets and essentias I get from the bodega cats (or at least that’s who I imagine I’m giving my money to) I am still thinking about one thing. Or maybe…just one. 

I began to write short poems throughout my days, here is a list of a few of them:

APPLE PIE

and today

i took a step out into the world only to find that it was awaiting my arrival since the prior night.

the sun bathed me

the city consumed me

and the sky lay open awaiting my next move.

“are you ready to fly yet?” it seemed to ask

but alas, i had homework to finish.

THUNDER

the night droned on forever and i swear i had nobody to go to jouvert with but finally…FINALLY plans fell into my life; precisely as i had expected. a mayoral candidate, his two best friends, a model and an estranged artist self proclaimed as YUNG NAZ went to the festival and came back beaten, bruised and dawning paint. the music, the vibes, the oil and powder – the amalgamation that stems from a love for CULTURE and CARIBBEAN – i felt it. i felt it in my toes and my fingertips and the button of my nose. and i plan to feel it again and again every chance i get, or my last name isn’t JEAN.

FUSCHIA BUTTERFLIES

as i tromp through the streets at night

i cant help but feel like there is something more I’m supposed to be doing at the moment.

its late, the hood is quiet, dudes hanging on the corner smoking and drinking and yelling with so much love you think you’re about to hear gunshots but it settles instead into laughter.

after all, hatred is born out of love anyways.

OCEAN BED

few people actually remind me of you

sometimes it’ll be a random being i come in contact and suddenly build an almost impenetrable connection with; until whatever fantasy relationship we had sustained in the moment of its conception was broken by prior engagements or lack of preparation.

there isn’t anything that has to remind me of you, though, because you’re on my mind virtually at any given moment.

you’re on my mind constantly.

IS THERE A PROBLEM?

I wonder why people stare at me.

Is it because I’m ugly? Is it because I’m cute?

Is it my outfit or my hair or my makeup; maybe the shoes I’m wearing. The confusion that stems from the fact that I don’t fit into one of the brainstormed categories of societal normalcies. And why, additionally, do those very people choose to look away once we get too close or they notice that I notice them noticing me with a gaze? Why do they instead ignore me and avoid my eyes – do they know the truth they see? The pain they hold? The ideas that lay dormant behind them?

…i wonder why people stare at me.

SOMETIMES

Sometimes, I think that I’m not the same

Sometimes, I know that I’m not

Sometimes, I just roam with no domain

Sometimes, I’m docked

Well

Meanwhile, you’ve been running through my mind

Meanwhile, the tears start running next

Ooh, Child, love aint got to be this way

Ooh Child, let’s stop…

The love didn’t go anywhere but its grown so much so that I can’t bear it. It fucking hurts me when I wake up and I cant just see you and hear you and feel you. I can’t believe that you really became my best friend and then I moved away. This is like an early 2000s rom-com and I’m really not here for it.

I forgot that these responses were supposed to be open ended…some of mine are extremely specific. The boy’s name is Juan.

OUT GETTING RIBS

do you ever stop to think why the new york city streets smell the way they do?

if you think about it, so much craziness is constantly happening in new york city; there are so many different types of people here, from all different types of places; we barely even have anywhere to put our trash. you know how in the movie wall-e, all of earth is just trash? and thats why they create the gigantic spaceship in the first place, to escape from earth, but it really doesn’t do anything. that wouldn’t help. i feel like we were given this one planet and we just trash it and don’t give a fuck and it makes me so sad and i never want to take anything for granted like that ever again. humans are so selfish and im almost ashamed to be a part of the human race.

I started to collage images into my sketchbook, while starting my smaller sketchbook from The Sketchbook Project. I took pictures of things that inspired me, and implemented those images throughout both sketchbooks as well.

I had gone with my class to a bunch of different art galleries to look at specific artworks meant to inspire us with our assignments in that class. Helio Oiticica’s exhibition interested me the most, as it was just a series of interactions in a bunch of rooms across the top floor of the museum. There was a room where you had to take off your shoes and walk across sand, stick your feet in water, play pool, sit in a hammock and listen to Jimi Hendrix, file your nails while laying on a mat–it was just so cool and so interesting and so tender. It made me feel like I was growing up alongside Helio.

These are from our class where we had a substitute (I forget her name) and recalled the entire process of whatever we had undergone before arriving at class. That was cool because you don’t often think about that process; it is habitual, you don’t have to think about it. In fact, thinking about it is so abnormal you almost forget certain parts of it.

These are just a couple of sketches and drawings I did that inspired what eventually went into the sketchbook. This is how most of my sketches look.

Here are a few pictures of some of the sketchbook pages. The sketchbook will remain a work-in-progress forever.