Cafe Chronicles, February, 2015
Calligraphy and Drawings by Thomas Ingmire
San Francisco, CA,  2013
Unique Book
5.5 x 7.5 inches,  24 pages


This is the most recent monthly book. The drawings were all made in the mornings in San Francisco's  Cafe Puccini. During the  month in my studio I was working on a book containing three poems; one by David Annwn, one by Ezra Pound, and the third by Li Po, a famous Chinese poet/calligrapher who lived in the 700's. David's poem ties the three poets together.  Li Po's poem, Going Up to Sun Terrace, was originally written by his own hand in Kanji characters. I was trying many ways of reproducing the characters and this included their introduction in the daily pages with the drawings. The forms, sometimes shaded to give them dimension, eventually evolved into working the same way with letters of the Western alphabet. As is always the case, the pages evolved during the month. This time, each day's work became more complex, with overlapping faces and letters. 

FINNEGAN'S FACEBOOK
Calligraphy and Drawing by Thomas Ingmire
Text selections from James Joyce's Finnegans Wake
San Francisco, CA, 2014
Unique Book
6" X 7 3/4",  38 pages housed in a plexiglass box 

While visiting the Bancroft Library on the UC Berkeley campus, I came across a manuscript  which had a collection of delightful Blackletter capitals that were decorated with amusing drawings of faces. This became the inspiration for the November 2014 Cafe Chronicles book.  The large capitals were initially created  in my studio followed by the drawings which were made each morning  at Cafe Puccini. The text passages, selections from Finnegans Wake, were added back in the studio. This book is the closest I come to having anything to do with the real world FACEBOOK (thumbs down).

Cafe Chronicles, April 2014
Calligraphy and Drawings by Thomas Ingmire
San Francisco, CA,  2013
Unique Book
5.5 x 7.5 inches,  36 pages

The  pages of the April 2014 book are made up of pen drawings and water color shapes. The drawings, again, all made at Caffe Puccini, were done first, with the water colors added later at home in the studio.  The over-riding interest with both drawing and with the water color additions is a concern for the composition of the page and relationships between the figures. The white of the page created by the water color shapes is as important as the shapes themselves. While it is nice when a person that  I am drawing is recognizable, that is not my focus or objective. I am happy  enough when the result is  merely recognizable as a human. Beyond that I look to create a rhythmical relationship between shapes, values, and in the case of this month, the colors.

Cafe Chronicles, February 2014
Calligraphy and Drawings by Thomas Ingmire
San Francisco, CA,  2013
Unique Book
5.5 x 7.5 inches,  36 pages

The February 2014 drawings were all done in Cafe Puccini. Many pages of the book had previously made calligraphic elements including letters from the alphabet, short texts, and abstract drawings. Also, towards the end of the month I added short poems and parts of poems by Kaye McDonough who I met one morning at the cafe.  "Paris in the twenties lasted forty years," is one of her poems. Kaye was a long time North Beach poet/resident who now lives and teaches on the East Coast. She was in town to do a reading at City Lights. I am thinking to continue with the idea of juxtaposing and drawing with a poem on a daily basis. It seems like an activity that  would  be good for one's mind.  It also enables me to explore curious relationships between words and image.

Cafe Chronicles, December, 2013
Calligraphy and Drawings by Thomas Ingmire
San Francisco, CA,  2013
Unique Book
5.5 x 7.5 inches,  36 pages

The December drawings were all done in Cafe Puccini. Each month I try to  add or change my approach to creating the pages. Some months I have used color. Other months I have pasted collage elements on the pages before beginning. In months where I have not  made this kind of beginning, I wait for something to happen, or just enjoy  observing how the act of drawing each day changes what I do or how I see a page. In mid month of this book, for no explicable reason, I happened to change my process by creating  the drawings before writing the date; the result  being that the drawing and writing seemed to be more integrated both in character and  in composition.