Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Starbucks in the eternal now


This is the Starbucks closest to my residence, just a few blocks away. I visit there often. It has been there since at least 2000 and from its millennial origin it has dispensed coffee and other treats steadily and with no basic change other than a re-decoration or two and different furniture and displays. I can sit in there and draw and disregard time or progress or the passing of the years. If you notice, there is no clock on the wall in any Starbucks. They want you to drink your coffee and forget the passage of time at least for the moment you are there. I drew this in 2001 but it might as well have been yesterday, in a flat, shadowless winter light with the perpetual parking lot and purgatorial Whole Foods in the background. Is coffee a sacrament? If not officially so, it's close.

Sepia technical pen ink and colored pencils on sketchbook page, January 31, 2001.

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