Diversity Rules Magazine

21 Diversity Rules Magazine February 2019 touched Schwartzmannn, and the memory stayed with him. A few years later, Schwartzmann was back on his feet. With his troubles behind him, he finally had the op- portunity to reconnect with his art. ough, it was his mate, Bruce Schwartzmann, who gave him the big nudge. "My partner," he said, "suggested that I take a print- making class. When I enquired 'Why?' he replied, 'So you can make our wedding invitations.'" "So," Schwartzmann continued, "I added printmaking to my artistic repertoire. We got married in 2013." As Schwartzmann reconnected with his craft, he also realized he needed to talk to someone about his visual impairment and turned to the San Francisco Light- house. He said, "I was looking for a therapist that I could relate to, one that could help me with situations and language associated with loss of vision." Although Schwartzmann does not use a white cane, or any other mobility aid for the blind, he found it neces- sary to cover his blind eye. "I choose to wear a black eye patch," he explained, "to communicate to the world that I can't see on my left side." Schwartzmann clarified that by covering his eye, if he happened to bump someone with the left side of his body, the individual would automatically know the reason for the abrupt collision. However, some reac- tions to the patch have given him much to talk about. "Sometimes," he began, "insensitive people call me a pirate. is used to bother me, but now I just answer: 'I am not a pirate, I am an artist.'" "As for my patch," he continued, "a friend of mine and I designed it to fit my face. We created it out of plastic mesh and fabric. e ones they sell at drug stores are too big and uncomfortable." But while his lack of sight with one eye has presented him with some unpleasant social interactions, when it comes to his drawing, Schwartzmann states that it has helped with his technique. "Having 2D vision," he said, "flattens my perspective of the world and makes it easier to transfer it to a flat piece of paper." "To me," he continued, "drawing is like dismantling a composition into its components and reproducing them on my sketchpad to recreate the whole." On January 10, 2019, the Lighthouse did an art show- ing of Schwartzmann's collection of drawings: Yellow Line: A Tribute to SF MUNI Operators. e well-at- tended event showcased 64 drawings that pay hom- age to the MUNI driver who offered Schwartzmann a place to sleep that one night in 2008. e Yellow Line collection is simple, yet also complex. It possesses impressionist elements, but with a playful and primitive twist. Schwartzmann's work is available for purchase on his online store at yellowlineart.ecwid. com, and to reach him you can visit his artist website at www.YellowLineArt.com.

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