Well-Dressed Lady on a Folding Chair
"Well Dressed Lady on Folding Chair"
1966 (Greenwich Village Period)
ballpoint pen with black ink in it on newsprint
If you're stuck in the field or anywhere there's nothing like a handy ballpoint pen as a drawing tool. Just remember the ink can be of the really cheep sort that changes color or fades over the years. It's not like they're really going to invest the extra bucks into developing a special fast-drying kind of India ink for ballpoints or something. I don't know, it's a sort of chance one takes. I've had poetry or songs that faded so badly I could only recall the words in some places by either remembering what they were eventually or just coming up with new ones and scribbling them into the old texts.
My drawing teacher was Peter Hayes, who was also a successful commercial artist as well. One of his regular employers was Playboy Magazine, to which he contributed finished full color artwork. We all saw one of these once in the form he had used to present the work which helped us get an idea of how it's done. He was a bit of a stickler for professionalism, insisting that we draw a square first inside the edges of our paper we were working on the define the picture area. As you can see from the drawing above, I soon abandoned that exercise. I was eventually expelled from his class for playing a radio while working. Mr. Hayes, if you are still with us, I am truly sorry, I was being an idiot.
I disliked all drawing classes, I shouldn't say immensely, but I'm afraid that's how bad it was. But, dislike it or not, drawing was a must and I'd go through it again and again willingly and if I disliked it, I knew that was too darned bad, that I would have to get over it. Art is a passion in a way, if an artist, something one feels driven and compelled to do, but for me it is also painful. It is certainly something I would not elect to do as a mere hobby. I don't do it for fun.
It takes a lot out of me to do any work of art. It takes something out of me, leaves me drained and exhausted, though usually poor, I find myself working with very expensive materials, there's the element of uncertainty about the outcome. The work may be a flop. Though I've had very few turn out bad. Some may argue about that, usually those who permit opinion to cloud their clarity of thought. All that and anything else is outweighed by a reasonable element of confidence in the integrity of the talent and the level of skill as well as a need to be productive in one of the thing one does best.
So, that's what I was feeling when I walked into drawing class that day and saw Mr. Hayes making the adjustments on the model's elaborate costume. I had also probably had one of my sleepless nights, working late on one or more paintings (often I had several works in progress at any one time) then getting sleep disorders, walking the streets for a couple of miles or even taking the subway out to the end of the line in Brooklyn on the elevated train tracks and then back again.
Quite often in class I would do lots of drawings with various
drawing materials, working sometimes quickly sometimes slowly. Mr. Hayes
would walk by and help with personal observation and critique, something always
useful for artists at all stages. Of course, in those days no one really
knew about ADD, attention deficit disorder, and until recently I thought I has
escaped with only a severe case of dyslexia. But no, I got 'em both.
The morning with the lady of the folding chair helped me to realize we live in a
world of clothing and fuzzy things and sometimes gauzy veils and millinery and
that we'd better get used to drawing textures and folds as well as other
things. Like folding chairs.
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