On the magazine’s latest cover, Jorge Colombo offers an inaugural image for 2021: a portrait of the new, quiet rhythms of New York streets. Colombo has long been a connoisseur of city scenes, both pre-pandemic and mid-pandemic. He recently told us about how he likes to work, his ongoing romance with New York, and finding and sustaining inspiration.
So many of your covers are the product of walking through the city at night. Does your creative mind feel more alive then?
Walking at night is like exploring a sleeping civilization: your mind fills in the blanks. I love passing so few people, or none at all, in a city of millions. And night lights are so theatrical: chunks of blackness, arbitrary pools of warm and cold light, buses going by. . . . It’s blissful and inspiring.
How did you arrive at the title “Bright Lights”?
In the nineteen-eighties, before I ever set foot in New York, I read Jay McInerney’s “Bright Lights, Big City,” which features a Tribeca restaurant, the Odeon, in the plot and on the cover. It was a nice glimpse into a city that I hoped to visit. Many of my explorations, in New York and elsewhere, are triggered by pop-culture references: movie locations, famous photos, name-dropped books or songs. I like crossing the gap between reality and art. It makes me think of how pilgrimages were once made to Biblical landmarks or to the birthplaces of saints. These days, people might visit the spot where an album cover was shot, as a way of honoring their chosen iconography.
I still try to look at the city with the awe of someone who’s just arrived or who dreams about it from afar. But even though drawing the Odeon was inspired by old New York, the detail that feels most current is that mask dangling from the diner’s ear. It’s 2020’s contribution to casual fashion, up there with torn jeans or laceless sneakers.
You often live-draw; in fact, you’ve even drawn live inside the Odeon, pre-pandemic. What do you think you gain by beginning a drawing in person, as opposed to working totally from photographs?
Oh, drawing live is always richer, even if it’s just a quick sketch. Sometimes I choose to be faithful to whatever I’m looking at, and sometimes I cheat a bit, but it’s always better to make such decisions while facing the subject. When I draw on location, I keep rectifying my point of view, as I realize even a small shift can bring out an interesting detail or hide an unwanted one. The “truth” of photography doesn’t always help me make a good picture.
I can also assess colors better in reality, as opposed to looking at a picture on an iPad. And framing, composing, and cropping are much more enjoyable activities than letting the camera lens solve the puzzle. If I have to leave a spot because of weather or time, I’ll shoot some pictures to get the details right, so I can finish the piece at home.
You lived in the city for decades but have recently spent a lot of time in the Catskills, in Narrowsburg, a four-hundred-person town. How have you been adjusting to country life? Has it changed your work?
I’ve been a full-time resident of Narrowsburg, New York, for two years now. I still haven’t learned how to drive, but that’s O.K., because I live on Main Street. I love it here; it’s got a precious cast of personalities. And I keep exploring the place: lots of walking around, lots of pictures. Even if there are fewer streets to draw than in a big city, I try to make each angle special. The key is looking at something—or someone—as if you have just discovered it. Seeing what’s in front of you is as important as acquired or received knowledge.
