Sitting in a cafe in Nebraska waiting for my sunny side-up eggs and rye toast, I pull out my “security sketchbook”. That's what it is, for 23 years I've never been without one. It’s a diary, a planner, and a scrapbook, holding memories and those values gifted to me as a child. I see neighbors of my youth in the faces I record between bits of toast.
A leather-faced farmer is my morning's first prize, secured amongst the other drawn faces that I treasure. I flip through the pages with a warm sense of accomplishment. My eggs arrive with a smile from the waitress. Dipping my toast into a deep yellow yoke, a nod from my farmer as he passes puts me dreaming. Uncle Chuck had such a face, I remember his little shed at the far end of his yard where he hid out from my Aunt Taresa. He kept his collection of oddities there, each with its memory, much like my sketchbooks.
Wiping the plate clean with my last bit of toast, I surveyed the room for one final face to capture. I could sit and sketch faces the whole day, but painting pays the bills. Just like chocolate cake, one more face wouldn't hurt... A pink, soft-skinned face with gold-rimmed granny glasses was my second helping. This was how each painting trip went - taking gravel roads from small towns to small towns with an occasional old barn or creek put to canvas. Camping out, counting stars, and talking to cows.
Meeting cowboys in Wyoming, and drawing stripers in Idaho. My sketches took on different meanings as I moved along my unplanned trip. Turn south here and west next. Talking to people who directed me to local places of interest, to county fairs and horse auctions. A baseball game just outside Fort Collins and a bowling alley in Beaver, Oklahoma. A cow chip throwing contest took me back to my days of cow pie fights at Hupp's farm. The Hupp girls really knew which pies to toss and which not to pick up. I filled three sketchbooks with people before I reached Bartlesville, Oklahoma where my gallery waits. Dropped off my paintings and met a few collectors before I moved on. I picked up a couple new sketchbooks in Tulsa for the trip back to Chicago.
Drawing and sketching is the passion I feed, both a necessary skill for my dream profession and the food that feeds my soul. Crossing over into Missouri, a visit to a visitors center shows me several ways to fill another sketchbook with stories written on the faces of those living the hard life. Abandoned farms, with wind torn barns to paint and the people who keep towns alive wait for my pencil to release their stories through lines and smudges. Black coffee, nods, and more eggs come with another smiling waitress.
Looking through one book I remember the lady at the laundromat who told me where to get a great hamburger in Littleton, Colorado and the roller skating waitress who served it. Planned for a watercolor of the waitress.
Most times these drawings are just my little snapshots to look at when a painting takes a bad turn, or a model decides to go to a ball game and leaves me waiting.
