Tuesday, February 19, 2008

When we were students Frank had a drawing class at his studio on Tuesday nights. I had a job restoring paintings in the morning, went to Frank's class at the League in the afternoon, ran around the corner to Carney's bar for a quick beer and roast beef sandwich then took the subway down to Frank's studio. It was my job to heat the sketch class room. Frank lives in a Soho loft heated by pot-belly coal stoves so I had to get there an hour before anybody else to build up the fire. While the room was heating I had time to spend alone with Frank's paintings. It was like being in a museum after everyone else had gone. There were all kinds of great paintings there, landscapes, seascapes, early paintings, even a few from his student days, portraits, nudes, interiors...and I only had an hour! Then there would be footsteps on the stairs signaling the arrival of the other students. "Did you ever see this one?" would usually greet the first arrival. Finally the model would arrive and we would draw for 3 hours. Frank would come down for the last hour, martini in hand, and critique our drawings. He always made it look so simple. Often he would take us upstairs to his studio to show us what he was working on. Elizabeth and I still have a sketch group once a week. It's marvelous to see how many people want to come and draw for a few hours a week even though we live in a very small town in Vermont. Last October, after a summer hiatus, one of our favorite models came back pregnant.....

1 comment:

jeff said...

nice drawing, beautiful rhythm and so simple.