Kemarin saya bilang kalau sedang tertarik nyari buku-buku nonfiksi berilustrasi untuk dewasa. Kalau nyarinya di genre artbook, tentu aja banyak, TAPI rata-rata isinya instruksional/how-to, proses berkarya, travelogue, atau galeri karya tanpa cerita. Not really what I’m looking for.
Lalu kebetulan nemu buku ini dari review Parka Blogs (urban sketcher Singapura), dan sepertinya unik karena genrenya memoir. Style gambarnya juga saya suka. Selain itu, Roisin Cure sketcher Irlandia (yang sketsa-sketsanya saya suka) menulis bahwa buku inilah yang membuatnya menekuni sketching, padahal latar belakang pendidikannya sains. Bikin penasaran.
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“I only started drawing fairly recently. But I’ve found it has a power to change my life and the world around me so profoundly…”
Everyday Matters
A Memoir
Danny Gregory
Hyperion (2003)
120 hal
Danny Gregory tinggal di New York City, bersama istrinya Patti, bayi Jack yang baru 10 bulan, serta anjing mereka Frank. Mereka pasangan yang sibuk dengan pekerjaan masing-masing. Lalu tragedi menimpa: Patti jatuh dari platform stasiun dan tergilas kereta, membuatnya lumpuh dan harus memakai kursi roda.
Ketika merasa kehilangan arah karena hidup yang mendadak berubah drastis, Danny mencoba belajar menggambar, tepatnya live sketching: menggambar apa yang dilihat di sekeliling secara langsung.
“Something about that drawing was different from anything I’d done before…What was different was not the drawing but the seeing. I caressed what I drew with my eyes, lingering over every curve and bump, gliding around contours and into shadows. No matter what I looked at in this way, I saw beauty and felt love.”
“What I began to see by drawing is that everything is actually special and unique and interesting and beautiful. Everything.”
“We can’t control what life deals us, just how we respond to it. And if we are monomaniacally focused on the bad stuff, we are missing the beauty of a half-eaten apple, the sunshine on the bedspread, the smell of warm cookies.”
Menggambar membantunya menemukan keindahan dalam setiap hal di kehidupan, dan belajar ikhlas menerima apapun yang terjadi.
Kalau di buku Reader Come Home, Maryanne Wolf mengajak kita untuk ‘slow down, take your time to appreciate what you read’, Danny Gregory melakukan hal yang sama melalui sketching. Slow down, appreciate life.
