Lafayette

Lafayette Monument, Baltimore, copr William Cook, 1982

This is one of those pieces that never got out of the studio.  I think I may have tried it once on a portfolio site, but other than that it's been buried since 1982.   One problem with it is the paper it's on.  At the time I could care less what I drew on.--part of my ongoing attitude problem regarding certain puffy art approaches that require only the best materials, most expensive media and so forth.  I was teaching myself how to draw, and wasn't interested in the fact that anything I might produce might have warranted expensive paper.  This is the nineth piece in this series, and the last thing I ever did anything on junk paper.  It's the least I could do.  

I'm not all puffed up I tell you.  The ink pens I used were rolling writers.  Cheaper than dirt.  These marks are impossible with proper ink pens.  The style is way too rapid, and the frantic but controlled  result of the linework is what I was dealing with.  I'm still amazed at how this is possible.  Perhaps it's because the sensation was that I wasn't the creator.  It was more like watching TV.  Sure there were some structural formalities followed.
But when the ink came out I had to hold on for my own safety.

OK so I've gotten a little puffed.  Besides, when I went to the good paper, wow.  the rolling writers really showed their stuff--black gold, swimmin pools, movie stars.  Calm down Jethro.  I was buying the pens by the box.  The intense drawing created friction that would literally heat up the points, and their little balls would drop out.  I hated when that happened.  No holes ever appeared in the good paper, I'm happy to report.
Don't try this at home.       

As for Lafayette, remember the Frenchy in The Patriot?  That was Lafayette.  He was all over the place around these parts, leading whole armies through the forests and so forth.  He is quite a figure in American History; this monument to him located at the foot of the George Washington monument at the center (more or less) of Baltimore, The Big Banana 
(talk about puffed up).    

\\///\  

War And Peace And Jim Dine's Brushes

War, 14" X 17" (or so), 1981, inquire here for print info.

Peace, 14" X 17" (or so), 1981, inquire here for print info.

Considering the previous blog, I thought these somehow fit in even though the only thing in common with Tolstoy might possibly be snow. 

These are a couple of the pieces that Jim Dine's paintbrushes inspired.  Dine's prints hit me hard as I strolled through the exhibit at the BMA--it was as if these pieces were giving me special permission to sally forth from this hallowed ground, young man, and draw for your life. 

I even wrote a letter once thanking him, that these pieces inspired a whole illustration career, but it sounded so stupid that I filed it away in case I would grow the cahonies to mail it one day.  So recently, I wanted to find his website, thinking I could shlep him an email, and found a list of several hundred art museums all over the world, all distinguished institutions in their own right, and dozens of galleries in New York, London, Paris, Tokyo, Rome, you name it, the kind of places that proudly give people like me the bum's rush, and anyway I thought, "Crap".  He's way beyond the internet websites, blogging and my stupid little thank you sentiment. 

And then I came across a Youtube of him being interviewed at the BMA, so I watched it with glee and there he was, my hero, the little bald headed old man, telling the interviewer that his work looked like hell out of the cheapo slide projector they were using--this is Baltimore (The Big Bananna), after all.  Laughed my ass off. 

Well, so here I sit all these years later offering my sincere  thanks to you Mr. Dine, sir, I really liked your hairy paint brushes.  There, I said it.  Still can't sleep. 

Wm