imagine if the oceans were replaced by forests and if you went into the forest the trees would get taller the deeper you went and there’d be thousands of undiscovered species and you could effectively walk across the ocean but the deeper you went, the darker it would be and the animals would get progressively scarier and more dangerous and instead of whales there’d be giant deer and just wow
this is exactly what the Old World was. Off shore there was Ocean, and inland there was Forrest
Here’s an Old World tree still surviving in a modern forrest of “large” trees
That’s just what trees used to be like.
And wandering among those trees, one might have encountered, yes, deer larger than a modern moose, but also, depending on what year, pigs bigger than grizzly bears, beavers the size of modern wolves, ground sloths the size of modern elephants, and bears nearly that big. Not to mention the insects and snakes and shit.
I could keep going, like, you might have crossed paths with a whole herd of these
or a family of these.
Like, 29,000 years ago, the last of the Neanderthal had just died out. Humans and this thing definitely lived at the same time.
And they didn’t live in the Forest, but there is one ice age creature that’s still alive, if you want to see what life was like back in the day. We used to think the Musk Ox was a type of bovine, or cow, which is how it got it’s name. BUT. See this?
that, my friends, is an ice age GOAT. That’s right, that’s a 900 pound GOAT. Here, take another look
anyway, yeah, the wild used to be a lot more Wild. Old Forest was definitely the inland equivalent of Ocean, and everything back in the day was turnt the fuck UP
Story Time: Get a load of what happened to me at Starbucks today.
There’s a running joke among people who know me personally that I unwittingly go out in public with a sign on my forehead stating “I Am Non-Threatening. Come Talk To Me.” Because if there’s a chance a bizarre conversation with a total stranger is going to happen, I’m typically the person it happens to.
Some context: I have been pretty darn sick this week. (It’s not Coronavirus, don’t worry.) Since the work in my queue for my day job is comprised entirely of audio narration right now, and I currently sound like a waterlogged Demi Moore, I haven’t been able to work these last couple of days. As a result, I’ve been using my down time to knock out as much of Manu’s redesign as possible. Today, to ensure I didn’t spend the day languishing in sinus misery, I medicated the crap out of myself and took Manu to the Starbucks down the block from my son’s day care.
I hit the bathroom, then picked an empty table, but as soon as I sat down with my venti Comfort Tea and started tweaking the inks on my iPad, I felt the eyes of the man next to me looking over my shoulder.
When I looked up, he had his phone out. “I’m sorry,” he said (in a thick accent I couldn’t place geographically), “I don’t want to disturb. I notice you art. You are artist!”
I tried to smile. “Yes, I’m... Well, I’m trying to be,” I croaked.
He leaned in, like he was sharing a secret.
“I am artist, too.”
He stuck out his hand.
I gently took it, grateful for the bathroom trip I just took in which I washed the scourge off of my fingers.
“Can I?” he asked, holding his phone up.
“Take a picture? Uh... sure,” I said. It’s not like he would be able to steal Manu out from under me or anything, I figured. The panel I was tweaking was magnified out to Guam.
“I am artist. Architect and Designer,” he clarified while he steadied his phone over my iPad. “I am Ilker. What is your name?”
“I’m Venessa” I said, trying to be polite. This, I thought warily, is precisely how I get myself into trouble. I’m too damn nice.
“You know, I come to America twenty years ago from Turkey...”
I put down my stylus. This was going to be a while.
“I like Turkey,” he explained. “I like the country and I like the people. But I am artist. I am not... religious man.”
I nodded.
“I told my wife I was going to go to America and she said, “what are you going to do? You don’t have job! You don’t have money! No Visa!” And I said, “I am artist and architect. I will paint and sell my paintings.
“So I come to America alone. To New York City. I sit outside, and I paint. And people, they liked my paintings. They bought them. This one for $30, that one for $50.
“One day, a man comes over to me and he say, “I like your painting. I see you are also architect.” And he gives me his number and asks me to go to meeting at his office. Because he wants to offer me a job. He starts to talk about a building contract.
“I tell him I don’t know anything about contracts. I have no Visa. I am not American citizen. But he says, “That’s okay. I will take care of everything. You will have nothing to worry about.” And this man, he gave me a job. $173,000 a year. And my wife, he gave her a job too. She was project assistant. I bring her and my two daughters over from Turkey.”
“Wow,” I said, not fully believing the veracity of what sounded like a full-on immigration fairy tale.
“Here,” said Ilker, unlocking his phone and opening up his Facebook app. “I show you my work.” He paused and looked up at me. “I am interrupting. You don’t mind?”
At this point, I was invested. I had to see. Because whatever he was about to show me would either prove or disprove this yarn he was spinning. “Please,” I said, gesturing for him to go ahead.
He opened his photos and my jaw dropped. His work... was UNREAL.
“This is building I designed on Madison Ave.... And this one in Chelsea...”
Holy crap. I had just been to Chelsea with my sister last month on a trip to see a broadway show. I had crossed the intersection of the building he was, at this moment, telling me he designed.
He flipped through more buildings. These, he’d designed in Washington, DC. In Bethesda. In Arlington. All beautiful, streamlined, modern structures I had visited and parked my car in front of. He told me he did much of his concept work freehand. That he worked exclusively in natural media. His preferred media was pen, ink, watercolors, and chalks.
Between photos of his wife and daughters, he went on to show me photos from the RUSSIAN EXHIBITION OF HIS ARCHITECTURE ARTWORK.
Y’all, I was stunned. I couldn’t believe the talent I was sitting next to. Scattered among these gloriously rendered images of some of the most beautiful building concepts I’d ever seen were paintings of scenes in Central Park, the National Mall, and nudes from a life-drawing session he attends from time to time.
When he was done flipping through his phone, he looked at me and smiled. “I hope you don’t mind that I interrupt you. I show you all this because what you are doing is very good. And you should be encouraged. To draw is to make beauty.”
I nodded, a lump in my throat. “Thank you,” I managed. “Your work is astonishing. I don’t even know what to say. What is your name again?”
He held out his hand once more. “Ilker Kocahan,” he said. “I am getting more coffee. Can I get you one?”
I looked at my still-full venti cup. “No thank you. But here, please take my card.”
He held my dinky business card like I’d handed him a treasure and thanked me.
Then Ilker got his coffee, and left the coffee shop.
At some point in his ramblings he talked about America as a place of dreams. How he credits this country with helping him rise to the top of his field where he is now able to sell his paintings for $800-$1000 a piece now that he’s retired. My heart ached to hear him talk about that, knowing how our leadership’s positions on immigrants have taken such a dark and horrifying turn.
Imagine the buildings and museums and public places that would never have been if a business man in the park hadn’t lifted up a Turkish painter who spoke little English.
And now that painter was paying it forward on me.
I still feel pretty darn sick. I’ve still got body aches and a nose that has taken the rest of my face hostage.
But today was a really good day. And I just wanted to share it with you in case you are looking for reasons to keep drawing/painting/dancing/writing. It all counts and it is all good.
If you would like to see Ilker Kocohan’s work, please click here.
Ilker Kocahan holds a bachelor’s degree in Industrial Design with a minor in architecture from the University of Marmara, Faculty of Fine A
UPDATE TO THIS STORY! I would have posted this sooner, but quarantine has had the unexpected effect of zapping all my alone-time...
As luck would have it, I saw Ilker one last time before my area received the mandate to start social distancing. I came into the Starbucks to work on the “Simon Is On the Ground” comic while waiting to pick up my kid from day care, and there he was, happily chatting with the Starbucks manager, who gifted him with a Starbucks hat while I ordered my tea.
A week had passed since our first meeting, so I wasn’t sure he’d recognize me. Lo and behold, as I turned the corner, I caught his eye, and he waved at me. This time, I asked if I might sit with him, and he warmly offered the seat beside him.
While I settled in, he told me that his project was being delayed and that he was going to leave the area and fly home before COVID-19 could make it impossible to travel. The hat was for his wife, whose only understanding of Starbucks was that Ilker really liked the coffee.
As one might expect, we immediately fell into another conversation about art, except this time, I eagerly abandoned my work to hear him talk.
And friends, did I ever get a master class.
He pulled up a painting on his phone which he’d sold for $800. It was a life drawing in ink and watercolor of a woman in a demure gesture, barely detailed and colored in but for her rose-tinted lips and the shadow cast across her neck. He said he felt sad that he’d sold it because he really loved how it came out.
“This is no detailed like yours,” he said, comparing his painting to my panel of Simon and Baz. “Mine is simple. But in a few strokes, I can capture the life of the lady.”
He took his napkin, turned it over, and pulled a pen out of his chest pocket. “Look there,” he said, pointing to a man sitting a few tables away. He began to scribble away on the napkin, lines and lines and more lines. “You see,” he murmured as he ran his pen over the napkin, “I can, with speed, capture the man. I don’t have hours to ask him to sit. I must let go of the planning.”
In seconds, the man across the room took shape on the napkin in a series of confident if also messy lines. It was incredible to watch.
I could instantly see what he meant. He had not produced a photorealistic version of this person on the napkin. But he had captured the man’s essence. The aura of a real person sitting contemplatively with his coffee while reading the Washington Post. I could feel the life of the drawing radiate from the paper.
(When he was done, to my horror, he crumpled up the napkin.)
I shyly mentioned that I’ve been working hard on my own gesture drawing, but had a long way to go, so he asked to see my sketchbook.
I mean... is there even a word in the English language to describe the combination of dread and embarrassment that precedes showing an art master your crap-ass sketchbook that no one sees but you? I didn’t know what to do with myself as he sat there and flipped through the pages.
Eventually, he nodded approvingly and said, “Okay! Is good. But this is sketchbook like every other.” He gestured at the page. “Where are you?”
I was lost for how to respond, but lucky for me, he’s a talkative guy seemingly incapable of awkward silences.
“The world needs to see you in the lines,” he explained. “Someone can look at my work and know, ‘that painting is from Ilker Kocahan.’ You need to draw more and more so that when people look at your drawings, they will know: this work is Venessa’s work.” Then he shrugged and said, “And who knows. I will maybe see you in two years at this Starbucks, and by then, your drawings will be truly yours.”
I’ve shared this story with some close friends who took mild offense on my behalf at his observations, but I really think it took sitting there watching him draw to understand exactly what he was talking about.
Ilker Kocahan has no imposter syndrome. He is supremely confident in every possible way where his art is concerned. The lines that flowed from his pen were fueled by his soul, not his brain. I didn’t think artists like him existed anymore until I was sitting there looking over his shoulder while he scribbled a man into existence, like it was nothing. When I asked if he plots out the perspective on his building sketches in advance, he shook his head no and doodled this on my cake pop wrapper while he rambled on about the components he likes to include in his architecture concepts:
(Don’t worry. I kept it.)
So when he talked about “finding me” in my sketches, I really think he could sense—by the light scratch of the pencil, the trace evidence on the paper of my erasing and failed attempts—my own lack of confidence, my second guessing and self-doubt. My desire to be as good as other artists instead of my desire to express myself.
And in that sense, everything he was saying about my sketchbook was correct. He urged me to get off the iPad as often as possible. To sketch with ink, which is riskier because you can’t erase it, and in that way, give myself no choice but to commit to the lines.
The conversation turned to lighter things after that. He’s apparently an extremely talented basketball player who loves hanging out with his wife and kids. His daughters are both designers. He thinks quirky viral videos are the best thing about the internet. (I agreed.) He’s weak for New York pizza.
Eventually, he bought me a refill for my tea and asked if I would meet him again in a couple of days so he could talk to me about my artwork and help me with my sketching. He even added me as a Facebook friend. When I left the Starbucks to pick up Colin, I was so excited and overwhelmed and grateful to the universe for bringing me into his acquaintance, I texted everyone in my family about it.
But as fate would have it, that night, the local government released its mandate regarding social distancing. He’s likely in Belarus right now with his wife.
I won’t lie and say I’m not devastated that I lost the chance to be his student for an afternoon. But the impression these coffee shop chats left on me was profound. I think about it all the time. For one who struggles with feeling like the artist version of Pinocchio waiting around for permission to be a real boy, it makes all the difference in the world to linger in the huge, unstoppable energy of someone who lives without an inner critic.
I hope I get to see him again after the quarantine is over. I’d love to see if I can fulfill Ilker’s prophecy and meet back at that Starbucks in two years with a different sketchbook in tow. One that I can hand over knowing without doubt or trepidation that anyone looking for me in the work need look no further than the bold stroke of my hand.
Kill la Kill is like if you took one of those “magic/fantastical competitive high school” animes, turned all the tropes and cliches up to eleven (-ty thousand) and then pushed the nonsense so hard it came back around into awesome. And possibly deep?
Kill la Kill is like if you took every single problematic anime trope and cliche, turned them up the same amount, and then bronzed them and added glitter and pink neon highlights.
Kill la Kill is an anime that is unsubtlely unsubtle in it’s… well, unsubtlety.
Kill la Kill is 25 episodes of an extended pun on the Japanese words for “fashion” and “fascism.”
Kill la Kill is a love story between a girl and her outfit.
Kill la Kill is about a girl who only has friends in her own head, and then finally has a friend outside her head, and then has a friend outside and inside her head, and then briefly is the friend inside her friend’s head.
Kill la Kill contains the line “You’re just jealous because you can’t afford a giant gold mecha crab.” (I am.)
Kill la Kill contains the line “If I die, at least I die knowing you have a tardy on your permanent record!!” in full seriousness.
Kill la Kill made me use the phrase “secretly not Hitler.”
Kill la Kill is… I don’t… I don’t actually know what this anime is. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s like this giant epic trainwreck of an anime that somehow turns out to be an exquisitely choreographed fireworks display that is probably a dick joke.
The Amazon rainforest is responsible for 20% of the world's oxygen. (**edit below)
It's home to numerous species of wildlife.
It is referred to as the lungs of the Earth.
And it's been burning for weeks, and no one is talking about it.
What is happening right now is an emergency that should be concerning all of us. The air we breath is at stake. This isn't exaggerating. Our lungs are destroyed as we speak and we are only just finding out.
This is our future. Are you upset about Spiderman? Same. Were you sad over Notre Dame? Same. But this is so much more important.
SPEAK UP. GET THIS KNOWN. Even if you can't do anything else, at least raise awareness to put some pressure out there on those who can do something. OUR HOME IS AT STAKE. The skies in São Paulo turned black. We are losing our most valued rainforest. WE CANNOT JUST SIT BACK.
**Edit: Many of you pointed out how the 20% oxygen phrase can be misleading (and many thanks, don't want to misinform). So, to clarify, it means that the rainforest provides us with an amount of oxygen that is then used by living organisms to survive. It is not a surplus, however; its carbon footprint is neutral because all this oxygen is used up. However, it remains essential, because, without it, we are left with less oxygen to sustain the organisms living now, which means some organisms will die. Also, without the forest, we will have fewer sources that absorb carbon dioxide, so greenhouse effects will be more pronounced. Many thanks for pointing this out.
If you want to help, I have reblogged a list of links with ways to help. Will keep it on the top of my dash for the next days.
Best of my ACEN 2016 photos. (Part 2) Please message me to inform me of who you are if you are in a picture! I’d like to give credit, or at least give the photo to you. Thanks!
acen has ended, and i feel a mighty need to post these pictures (mostly bc everyone else is)! i had a blast, met some AWESOME PPL caps 100% necessary, and got to parade around w @currently-in-orbit in giant sparkly dresses which lbr is the best part??? ❤️❤️❤️ hmu if you’re in these, and hoping to see y'all next year ahhh!!!!!
