CHARACTERS

One day, as I was considering subjects for my art classes to draw, it occurred to me that I now had the skill to depict the fairy tale figures I couldn’t as a child (to my own satisfaction, at least—except in profile). So with pen and India ink I began to draw fanciful female characters that became more abstract as I went along, some of them even a little risqué. I designed a card with an angel at Christmas and started doodling animals, as well. Then I tried to market packages of my work as cards in a local shop but didn’t have any success. I also created a nude calendar, but that I never worked up the nerve to try to sell. I went through a number of artistic phases in rapid succession, beginning with realistic images that quickly became stylized and eventually abstract—important stages for me to go through because, perfectionist that I was, I’d always been meticulous in my drawing and bound by the literal. I needed both to explore a looser style and to exercise my pictorial imagination.

I couldn’t resist an inclination to push the envelope towards whimsy—tilting the neck at an improbable angle and drawing a tortuous root on the end of the rose, which I eventually decided to lop off.