The story behind the drawings

I’ve been drawing since the day in eighth grade when a substitute art teacher introduced the class to gesture drawing. I picked up the pencil and a lanky figure emerged on my sketchpad. Though there was very little resemblance to the model, the teacher held the drawing up as a good example. I liked the praise, and even more, I liked the unthinking, spontaneous activity. Where had that drawing come from? Up until then, art had been a slow, episodic process of smoothing clay, stitching yarn on burlap, layering papier maché.  

The next year, 1963, my class of 60 kids who had been together since kindergarten, moved to the newly built high school where a shrill bell sounded every hour, reverberating in the spanking white hallways. Upperclassmen held power to uplift or demolish one’s social status. Even my own classmates had changed. Friendships were scrambled. Now we were on different tracts—college or trade school bound. More homework and pressure for some, more social life for others. In this unfamiliar and intimidating environment, the art room became my sanctuary.

With its comfortable disorder of tables and easels, the art room was also blessed with the presence of Vito Sammartano, “Mr. Sam.” After school or during free periods, anyone could come and work or hang out. We had free use of water color, pastel, ink, collage, acrylic paint, and books of art reproductions. I thought the ones who painted were the serious artists; Mr. Sam said drawings were just as worthy. He was counselor and confidante. He steered me away from a career in social work and toward an arts-based college. 

I learned about rendering form, chiaroscuro, and the color wheel, and I won prizes for drawings in a regional art show sponsored by the Boston Globe. What I most remember is Mr. Sam turning the pages of my sketchbooks and instead of criticism or a drawing lesson, he said, “I love your drawings.”  No one else taught like that!

In college I focused on cello, and I also took drawing classes with Sophia Healy. We drew from a live model or a still life arrangement, and each week we also brought in other work—rural landscapes in pastel, crayon and charcoal. We would tack the drawings to the wall, and Sophia would observe each one, showing curiosity and delight in a particular detail or aspect and inviting our own comments. Everyone in that class blossomed.

After graduating, I stopped drawing to play cello in orchestras. In fact, I forgot how to draw. I remember trying to make a cartoon of a chameleon for a concert flier. It was a simple outline, but I could barely control the pen. It was as if that side of my brain had atrophied.

When I was 34,  I felt persistent  pain in the fingertips of my left hand. I saw hand specialists and psychiatrists; nothing helped. I could no longer play, and I took a job in a fabric store. After a year of various therapies, I picked up a pencil and an old sketchbook and while looking down from my window, drew a scene from my backyard garden. It was as if a frozen part of me was thawing.  My hand moved without effort as tears flowed freely—an unusual experience!

After that, I started taking walks around San Francisco and drew views of the harbor and parks. I remembered Sophia and how she taught drawing. Her idea of working was very natural. Think about a simple idea like scale, light and dark, or thick and thin lines.  Don’t worry about correctness or accuracy. Just draw.

Soon after, I saw an article about a novel she had just published. I got in touch and told her how much I appreciated her teaching, how different it was from my stringent approach to practicing cello.

I began sending her copies of my black and white drawings. She wrote back, copying a line or two that she liked, commenting on how the trees grew in relation to each other or how the boats were set back in the water. When I got stuck, she sent papers on which she’d painted faint shadows, which served as springboard for my pen and ink. I looked forward to her response because she observed what I couldn’t see in my own work.  What I saw as messiness or vagueness, she saw as life and energy.  

After two years, the feeling returned in my fingers. Perhaps the drawing helped. I was so grateful to be playing cello again, it seemed less important to be polished and perfect. I tried to make practicing more like drawing, to accept where I was at each moment.

I still draw each day. Those moments are a charm. To dip into the visual realm isn’t work; it has no rules, has no goal or audience.  It is full of surprises; it’s a relief!

The name Vito means “life;” Sophia means “wisdom.” Their names embody what they taught me.