my art history

       i have been drawing as long as i could remember . not quite sure how old  i was when i finished my first project but it was a major accomplishment for me. not even going to school and being able to make my own boat. it had a pilot house and was shaped like a boat and it had nails i drove every inch apart all around the the outside rim of the boat to represent railing posts on a ship. 

       mom was divorced then and just had us kids until she met my step dad,the sailor who told of ships at sea. and with my imagination and a book of knowledge encyclopedia , i figured out what a ship should look like. i think i had done a pretty good job , but when i showed it to mom she tells me i better get that wood back out to the garage , and if i knew what was good for me , then i would also pull all those nails out of those boards. and stay the heck out of there. well i did as i was told , devastated that she didn't appreciate my artistic talent.

     i messed around with coloring books , and watched fred and barney flintstone when i didn't have to work or do chores around the farm. secretly wished i was george jetson , with a flying car i could fold up in my briefcase. and i watched  randy , a kid in my class. those of you who were in my class surely must remember him and i envied how he could draw.  at 8 yrs old could be quite rude at times . seems even then he had figured out that i would never be an artist. and there was no way i would ever be good like him. he was a great artist schooled and coached by his mom in so many different areas. music , art and what ever he did was perfect. randy  was great, and i will be the first to admit.  as a kid we would drive past moreheads shop and randy painted a nativity scene on the windows to die for. he was definitely a tough act to follow. 

    then there was vince , a good friend of mine with whom i had shared some drawing ideas and he did the same with me . so that by the time i had reached the 8 th grade i had finally excelled in my own area of expertise among my classmates. this was in puffy hippy lettering. and it was there i found i had something else for art, and that was an imagination. 

     we were having a eight grade dance and randy came up to me to ask to do the lettering for the dance. i felt this was an honor. especially after being rebellious in mr.offredo's math class and getting my marking pens taken from me. i was sitting in class marking a psychedelic flower on my skin and it irritated him so , that he had to make an example out of me in front of class and then asked for all my pens. he took them and said don't even ask for them back. well i didn't . they were hard to replace and i never marked my skin after that. i just  figured he needed some markers for his own masterpiece. other kids couldn't understand at the time , why he did that , and that encouraged me. i did the posters for the  dance and asked randy why he didn't do it . and then he told me that he was real good at copying, but had trouble doing anything new or from his imagination as i was doing. this too was a big feather in my cap and i went furious tearing up the paper learning .

      and it was 10 th grade i believe when i met miss martinelli for he first time in my high school art class. she was great , and the first year she taught me quite a bit. and we always had fun in art class, going around the school sketching in odd areas. but i loved it. the second year i did a sculpture of sherry . can remember working  and measuring sherry's head and making sure her facial features were in the right place. i had straight a's in art and spent most of my high school years in misss matenelli's  class. as i would just come in to class and sit in and read , while she taught another class. and it was mrs, martenelli who told me to never give up my dream of being an artist. she told me that someday i would never regret the time i spent doing my art. 

     don't know where mrs. matinelli is but want to thank her . she was one heck of a teacher and had more influence on me than any other person in my life when it comes to my art. i never did give up trying and have accomplished a lot , and have a lot more to do. and i never had any regrets about doing my artwork other than i should have been doing it a few more times when i was younger and dumber and had a tendency to get into trouble. maybe if i sat the bottle down then and picked up a pencil , i might still be a better artist. and still only half as worthy of mrs. martinellis compliments. 

        months would go by with out drawing some times and sometimes that was good. as it seemed when i picked up a pencil or pen it fit my hand better and my work was more clear. and  still at sad times or low points it was  the only solace i could ask for . but eventually it was my love of art and thinking in three dimensional form that allowed to think i might have to give chainsaw carving a go. a lot of sketchpads have come and gone since i first started drawing and art in general. and as long as mind doesn't wander and i am blessed with talent shall i continue to create in one form or another of art. nobody could tell me not to do something, as i will surely be motivated to find out why not. 

       the above sketch is of myself done by myself when i was around 22. this was my grizzly adams phase in my life. the sketch at the top of the page s of a lady who as young girl lived in the bayou, and her parents were sharecroppers and they didn't have much money. she never had a bike but she would sit on this wrecked frame of a bike and dream of far away places she would ride if she could ever get off these blocks. as she talked and told me i formed this mental image of how strange that world of the bayou must be compared to the way we live up north.