Monday, January 26, 2009

S. Cedar Street, Glendale, California



drawing is 90 percent done i'd say. gotta go back into it later. but wanted to post anyways.


this is a drawing of my hometown Glendale. really about growing up on Cedar St. these are how my armenian neighbors might look today. edo and zaven. they were real cool to grow up with. me and my bro used to play basketball on the sidewalk, baseball in the alley, roller hockey in parking lots, biked around town and we also pretended we were pro wrestlers. they'd give us armenian bread saturday mornings, teach us how to chew shemushka (sunflower seeds), give us basketball trading cards, even teach us how to make cool pog slammers. (DUDEE DOES ANYONE REMEMBER POGS. THOSE WERE THE BEST!) we'd do that everyday after school until the sun went down.. this fun routine continued until they went into middle school. they then matured and grew mustaches and me and my bro stayed hairless with high squeaky boy voices. I remember one time they even saved us from getting kidnapped by some guy in his mid thirties. he walked down the street, and asked us if we wanted to play soccer nearby. i didnt know better so i was like, "yea! lets go!" but zaven, the older neighbor, cleverly asks me what time it is, and he says, "oh man! we gotta go to basketball practice! sorry man" and we bounce and that night i got to sleep in my bed cause of him. But anyways. growing up in glendale was the best. the neighborhood kids. we didnt know what skin color was, we didnt know what culture was, we didnt know what stress was. we just played.


yay for growing up in the apartments of glendale!

3 comments:

Kshin said...

i remember tough times with armenians in high school~ you know how it was, race sticks with race. but this entry made me feel different. big ups~ thx for sharing, i enjoyed reading this and the piece fits it perfectly!

traveling dirtbag said...

JAMES! Your art is beautiful! I can't believe it.. i'm so impressed man. (pardon my facebook stalking, but it was totally worth it)

Anna Topuriya said...

yay for glendale!