Michaelangelo at the Muscarelle

"Let this be plain to all: design, or as it is called by another name, drawing, constitutes the fountainhead and substance of painting and sculpture and architecture and is the root of all the sciences. Let him who has attained possessing this be assured that he possesses a great treasure; he will be able to make figures taller than any tower, both painted and carved, and he will find no wall or side of building that will prove narrow and small for his imaginings."

Michelangelo

In learning anatomy I would draw the masters from memory...left: Muscarelle catalog / right: just for fun... Drozda graphite/ink notebook drawing from memory 1979.

I received a belated birthday present today. My sister Linda gifted me with an outing to the College of William and Mary and the Muscarelle Museum of Art to view 'Anatomy as Architecture, Drawings by the Master'. Linda's friend Sharon, a weekend docent at the museum, happened to be passing by as we approached the front door. She graciously offered to come in and walk us through the intimate collection of Michelangelo's drawings. Her enthusiasm and knowledge provided insight as well as the storyline that makes each of the twelve works really fit within a context of his time.

She pointed out that Michelangelo rebelled against the Vitruvian Canon used as the standared for anatomical proportion popularized by Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man. Michelangelo chose to break out and exaggerate form seeing the human body as the inspiration for his architectural designs and in the monumental way that we associate with his style.

The upper level special exhibitions gallery at the Muscarelle is always serene. I've been there many times over the years and rarely encounter any other patrons. Today was no exception. Linda and I had a private tour of rare and magnificently intimate pages of this masters poems, writings and sketches...the installation is beautifully augmented by a series of engravings that, like the work of the master are rarely seen outside of Florence, Italy. All on loan from the Casa Buonarroti.

This is the only stop in America for these exceptional works, all of them appearing to be torn right from the master's sketchbook. The March 17 Wall Street Journal article states that "...it is actually possible to have the drawings to yourself. This doubles the intimacy of the experience__ you can see the artist at work, as if peering over his shoulder."

That's how it felt... like a private hour looking over the shoulder of 'genius at work'.

~Sing the day~

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.

The Natural Way to Draw

In 1970 I recieved a gift copy of Kimon Nicolaides The Natural Way to Draw. The book sets up fifteen hour a week schedules for drawing. It took me several years to have the confidence to start. Once I began I quickly became dedicated to completing each exercise in this wonderfully rich book.

The idea is to work from life and/or using the live model which often I did. Though living out of the loop, as I did during that time, I also freely used the Domonkas Library art book collection...that's what I did here:

These three memory studies after Diego Rivera were done on freezer wrap paper with woodstove charcoal in 1978.

Having Lunch with the Masters

As I turn 60 I'm taking some time to reminisce and reflect on the early days of building a foundation as a visual artist.

During five years in relative seclusion, living simply and going 'back to the land' my days were absorbed in a rhythm of study. I'd bring home arm loads of art books from Domonkas Library. Mr. Domonkas had donated his extensive collection of books on travel, culture and art to the library bearing his name. It was magnificent, and a saving grace, to have access to a wide and diverse selection of tomes similar to a university or museum collection in both depth and scope.

Back at the cottage I invested countless solitary hours pouring over the works of the master artists and drawing, drawing, drawing.

Having little in the way of funds I became very creative in terms of materials and media. I used charcoal from the wood stove and I'd walk to the tiny grocery a few blocks from the cottage to purchase a roll of freezer wrap paper. I'd cut lengths along the serrated edge of the box and weigh the paper pieces down to relax the 'roll'. I loved the smooth waxed underside of the paper which offered a fresh and unfamiliar feel to each piece.
Creating dozens of daily drawings 'copied' from memory by utilizing the illustrations of art masterpieces in library books worked better than any drug I'd ever taken in terms of its positive addictive quality. I couldn't wait to wake up each morning, burning the drawings from the day before to start the wood stove, which also taught me not to get attached to out comes, while readying to dive back into the books, everyday coming back for more.

Here are three consecutive memory pieces, that I didn't burn, inspired by the Three Graces within the painting Primavera (Allegory of Spring) by Sandro Boticelli

The first is done on waxed freezer wrap paper with wood stove charcoal. The second and third are oil on freezer wrap.