In Search of Lost Time. 1962-63 — the last drawings of innocence. While combing through the files looking at old work in preparation for my upcoming review of sophomore year at RISD, I happened across the following 11″ x 14″ sheet, composed nostalgically during my freshman year; eleven free-hand pencil-drawings copied from 2.5″ x 3.5″ photo portraits, the ones traded with high school friends at the end of senior year, plus one of my first-met friend at RISD, Katherine Sears, with whom I am still in contact almost fifty years later. Of the high school friends portrayed, one maintains contact, Susan Willey Marston, still living in Saco, Maine where we came of age. Old Friends, Gold Friends.
The adjustment to a totally new, and unexpected, environment that ‘going away’ to school, and an art school to boot, made in my life was initially shocking, eventually more gradual, with changes happening in fits and starts; like a new dance learned, consisting oftimes of two steps forward, three steps back, four steps forward, one step back, and so forth. Learning, growing, shedding old thought patterns, developing new ones. In high school I had been a B+ boy, making the honor roll regularly; however I never made ‘high honors’ as did several friends. Nevertheless I was lucky enough to be inducted into the National Honor Society, about which ceremony I wrote a short story for my Advanced English class freshman year at RISD. College was definitely a challenging and humbling experience. Whereas I had been a bit of a star in high school, at RISD I was far from being a stellar student, winding up with only a 2.67 average first year. My weakest subject was Foundation Design, despite my strengths in calligraphy; however I was able to raise a first semester C to a C+ second semester. I was better at Foundation Drawing, which included classes in Life and Perspective Drawing; starting with a B- and working it up to a B+ by the end of year. The sophomore year that started in the fall of 1963 would prove to be even more challenging than the first…
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