Charcoal Works on Paper

Here's the turning point when I pushed myself over the edge of total fear and forced myself to learn two-dimensional skills. Painting would come later, but charcoal had captivated me always, probably tethered to my enduring love of black and white photography.

In the 90's, I was at the Metropolitan Museum of Art when I accidentally stumbled upon charcoal drawings from the Impressionists. One in particular, I believe it was a Seurat, was a view down a dark unlit hall where the only light was from an opened doorway about halfway down the hall where a figure stood, I think it was a woman, lit by the strong light from the other room. Completely knocked me out.

I came home to my duplex that I shared with my friends who were married that lived on the bottom floor. She was a graphic artist and had this Michelangelo calendar of some of his drawings. I borrowed it and copied two drawings before I threw it away and declared, like all egotistical artists do, that I was ready.

I was, but so very much at the beginning of what remains today a lifelong medium, my main medium, that is charcoal.