I met Sage Sovereign on the street outside a nightclub in East Berlin.

It was a couple years ago; we were both crossing Warschauerstrasse from Monster Ronson’s to the U1 station and landed on the curb simultaneously. Then I stared at her, because she is one of the most beautiful people I’ve ever seen. We looked at each other, recognizing some deep New Yorker affinity and a clear aesthetic convergence.

I babbled, as I do when I first see someone I desperately want to draw, introducing myself, asking her name, offering my card. We agreed we should certainly collaborate the next time she was in Berlin (I think she was off to do fire performance on a glacier in Iceland, right then).

We got connected on Instagram and I saw pictures of her amazing performances.

She came back to Berlin at least twice, but we couldn’t sort out the scheduling. And then the pandemic began, and I tried to draw her during a video stream of an extraordinary performance piece she did at twilight early last summer. But the video quality just didn’t give me enough visual information. So when she messaged me to let me know she was modelling for terrific woman-run NYC life drawing group Distanced Drawing, I was thrilled!

I still long to draw her in person, but this was a wonderful opportunity to begin collaborating. I am so grateful to Sage for her fantastic modelling work and to Distanced Drawing for making it viewable to me in the middle of the night in Berlin!

You can follow Sage on Instagram here and her website is here.

I am incredibly grateful to my Patreon Patrons, whose monthly financial support makes it possible for me work safely at home, documenting amazing performers.