Michael Dolen

Bars of New York Michael Dolen

Shortly after moving to Manhattan from Saratoga Springs, NY, in our retirement years, my beloved wife, Lenise, became ill. After several months of worsening symptoms, she was admitted to an acute care ward at Weill Cornell Medical Center, the beginning of numerous inpatient stays. For the weeks and months that followed, I would visit her in the hospital from lunchtime to late afternoon. We would talk about our children and our grandchildren, review the daily headlines and current politics, and tell stories and jokes to each other, all the while reviewing our lives and 58 years of marriage together. Whenever I visited Lenise, I would bring a small briefcase which held my sketch books, magic markers, pencils, and pens. While she napped, I worked on small drawings - some figurative, some abstract - mostly rough thoughts and ideas for future finished works. When it was time to leave, I would stop at neighborhood bars and pubs in Midtown East on my way home. There, along with a drink, I began to draw the likenesses of the customers, waiters, and bartenders in my midst, capturing the atmosphere of these new surroundings. I would then take the drawings home and complete them in my apartment studio. Some I gave away as remembrances and gifts, others I sold, and many I include here in "Bars of New York," a collection of works from 2017-2020. Lenise passed away in 2018. May her memory be forever a blessing.