Thursday nights at Philadelphia’s sketch club known as the Plastic Club have saved my soul. Grounded in some sort of mystical warmth that no other venue has for me, the session is two hours with a nude model and then two hours with a La Fin Du Monde.
And there is wine and cheese during the sketching. And there are wonderful people who don’t laugh at you even if you’re a poor drawer like myself. They just look over your shoulder and say, sincerely: “Well, look at what you’re doing. Isn’t that interesting to put the nose way over there.”
I like to sit next to Anders Hansen, who I’ve lauded on this site and other places. I love watching him transform the raw data in front of him into these watery, elegant forms using sumi-e ink. I haven’t been in two months, but I finally got my shiz together and showed up and it’s all warm and fuzzy like I never left.
Artists, accomplished and unaccomplished come, pay eight bucks, and return for three hours to a womb-like reverie that only drawing beautiful things in a convivial atmosphere can offer.
Michael Guinn is the president and heart of the Plastic Club. Here is the handsome man at Studio Tours on Sunday (notice Rick Wright in the background selling a print). Mike is an excellent painter and drawer and father of David Guinn, the Philadelphia muralist who whose murals I pass every day in my car and say out loud: “These are by far my favorite murals.” No offense to the other muralists.
So, there are a million artists who are talented and wise and warm, right? Surely. But this particular group of people are Philthy Artists, in the strictest sense, open to life, open to experience, and open to each other. It’s what makes Thursday nights so satisfying. That, and Dirty Franks.
We all repair to Franks to continue the lively discussions, and last night was a pumpkin carving contest and the cartoonist/artist Andrew Hoffman and I looked on while artist/poet David Miles painstakingly carved a beautiful pumpkin that looks like a scary face AND a coffee cup with steam coming out. It’s just fun in a way nothing has been fun since second grade.
So, why am I gushing?
At the risk of sounding sentimental, I want to sing the praises of a sweet, jovial and innocent energy that is raised these Thursday nights at the Plastic Club and beyond, that anyone can take part of, and that grounds me and renews my faith in human connections. Sound like an exaggeration? Come by with your sketch pad and charcoal…and you be the judge.
But don’t take my seat next to Anders.
