I received The Gibson System for the Guitar, carrying a copyright of 1939, when I began to take guitar lessons in 1960. This excellent foundation built my understanding and my skills. It focused on the fundamentals that mattered so well that it has value today. On the other hand, my family camped every few years. Of course, when we skipped years we forgot how to “do” camping. My grandfather’s tent must have been Civil War surplus and weighed more than […]

Categories: Mastery, Working & Methods

The books and drawings that I make are, I am told, eccentric. I make them using archaic techniques and using tools for industrial or architectural design. The resulting drawings create their own category. It is difficult to ascertain with precision just what is is going on — which is my intent. (All art benefits from a little mystery.) My drawings begin from a small plan about the size of a business card and expand to fill the format of a […]

Categories: Mastery, Working & Methods

It will be 50 years since Donn E. Trethewey told me that “if I wanted to be an artist, I would have to draw everyday.’’ That was on October 26, 1968. I was 19 years old going on 11. I have been lucky to have a friend in Donn since that time. He also told me about adding glycerine to my gouache to make it appear flat as if screen printed. Lovely. Between Don’s admonition and Imus’s assignment discussed in […]

Categories: Mastery, Working & Methods

In my first drawing class in college in 1967, my instructor said either “always carry a sketchbook” or “always keep a sketchbook.” I don’t know if anyone else in Keith Imus’s Drawing 101 paid much attention, but I did.  Over the past 50 plus years sketchbooks have developed into a most potent device for learning. It is a discipline at the crux of my professional life. Discipline In that first year drawing course, Mr. Imus made it part of our […]

Categories: Mastery, Working & Methods

I came upon the following bothersome quote from Matthew Crawford. (Despite thoroughly enjoying the book, no author is perfect.) “Fixing things, whether cars or human bodies, is very different from building things from scratch. The mechanic and the doctor deal with failure every day, even if they are expert, whereas the builder does not. This is because the things they fix are not of their own making, and are therefore never known in a comprehensive or absolute way. This experience […]

Categories: Mastery, Working & Methods