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Paris 1999 - 'N'importe qui peut être Quelqu'un..'*
One fine day in the 17th arrondissement as I was leaving a café I plucked a waiter's notepad off the counter.
Aside from a handful that I posted to family and friends the drawings you see here were the only ones I brought home to Ireland, done on the famous waiter's notepad. I did several more larger ones that were commissioned by cafés and restaurants and I left a lot more behind as I was travelling light. Most are ink (bic biro) and occasionally I used pencil, colour pencil and markers.
*'..mais quelqu'un n'est pas necessairement n'importe qui.' This is a favourite phrase of my learned Parisian friend Tony. It means- 'anybody can be somebody but somebody is not necessarily anybody'. It's about the grammar of the words in the sentence but it also has a deeper meaning. Someone who is scraping by might be very important and someone living the high life may be of very little consequence, in the grander scheme of things. I read a similar one on a bench recently- 'those that mind don't matter and those that matter don't mind'. Modigliani put it well too when he said- 'On non fiche pas un coup. Tout le monde s'en fout. Tout le monde s'en prix'. ['We don't give a damn. Everyone is mad. Everyone is worth it'].
The last time I saw Tony, who studied English literature in London, was around the time of these drawings, he wore dark glasses and had a cane, but he wasn't blind, and he brought around several rolls of wallpaper in a granny trolly wherever he went. I didn't get to say adieu to him. I hope he's doing well.