Drawing Class '68
He seemed not much older than we were, having so much fun reading the names on the roll call, trilling the R’s on Latin names adding a prefix of Sir or Mademoiselle. Later, when we got to know him better we realized he was just stoned or drunk. I remember he sat cross-legged on the desk and gave a little speech about the options at hand. He said we were going to pretend to be great draughts men like Raphael or Del Sarto and that he would give us the understanding and the tools to do so. But we had to take it seriously or it wouldn’t be fun and it had t be fun or we would be bored and being bored led to dreadful things. He said that to be something you had to first pretend to be it. That’s the way we learn he said.
It was a contradiction (the first of many) So serious, so flakey.
It was my first year of College. I had, in High School, become something of a competent cartoonist and I thought of myself as a terrific artist. Everyone said so. I even got a summer job drawing caricatures at Southern California tourist resort. But having been where I came from left me thinking that Walt Disney was as great as there was. So I remember being adrift of this guy who was so hyped on some old fart from Italy.
Drawing from life # 86: (required of all Art Majors ) Tu-Thrs 9-12am - 4 units
Before any of that he wrote in great flourishes on the black board:
Doctor Julius Garbo ( at your service)
We soon learned that he wasn’t a doctor and used many first names. We just called him Garbo.
Later, when I succumbed to the rigors of his discipline and felt ‘the calling’ to be one of them… to live and feel the fraternity of Caravaggio and Velazquez and to feel that although you walked in their shadow, theirs was a shadow of pure radiance.
