Of The Earth

The woman with the wagon served as a metaphor. She helped me to see how I felt. I studied her. I was drawn to her silent way of moving through the world. No fuss. No muss. Simply focused upon her task. She had a garden. She communed with the earth in a way that no one that I knew had demonstrated. She seemed to have no other life. She was in fact OF THE EARTH. As a young artist learning to calm down and listen to my inner voice I knew instinctively that I could benefit from this.

Back indoors at my work table I would insert bones giving the figure a necessary armature to be able to 'stand up' to the world. I would sometimes turn the drawings around in my mind's eye, looking in reverse, in order to train my eye to see from all directions.

The two drawings done in pencil...one from life on newsprint the other in the studio on vellum. 1973.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

When I was working with Kimon Nicolaides book in the early 70's I learned that finding a live model was no more difficult than looking out of my window. On the block where I lived there was a fascinating elderly Eastern European woman dressed in 'Old Country' clothing. She pulled a small red wagon and carried a hoe that was almost her height. She appeared most every day during the fall wandering silently down the road stopping to pull matted leaves and debris from between parked cars.

She piled her wagon high with this dark and matted mulch taking it back to her garden.

I admit that I would watch for her. I was intriqued and mesmerized as if I were looking through a keyhole into another, distant time. As soon as I would notice her coming down the road I would bolt for my sketch book. All the while she worked I drew. There were times when I went out to walk beside her attempting to catch her other worldly quality on my paper. She did not seem to mind. We never spoke, I don't imagine we knew the same language, yet she inspired me greatly.

Two of the sheets here were done from life on 18x24 inch newsprint. The third is a sheet of four studies using soft pastel and conte crayon.