BLACKSTONIAN Linocut by David Conn

This linocut pays homage to my first drawing teacher. In my last semester of high school I decided to enroll in a drawing class at the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Arts.

It was a night class. The materials were vine charcoal, kneaded eraser and a large newsprint pad. We drew from plaster casts, three students to a cast, changing positions for different views of light and shadow. Same cast, mine was a close to life sized version of Benjamin Franklin for the entire semester, two nights a week for seven weeks. I was the only high school student in the class. Many were more interested in social chatter than paying attention to what the instructor was saying. He was an elderly may who trained in Europe, had a successful painting career, showed at the Armory show in 1913. He commuted by train from New York City, two days a week to teach this class. I was eager to learn and he saw some promise through the course. One thing he did before every class, after setting the lights, was to pause and read a 3x5 card he shuffled through, looking for the most appropriate quote on drawing by the great artists and architects through time. I wish I had copied them all, but I did remember one by scribbling it on the bottom of the pad, have it in my studio and see it every day.

Do not fail as you go on
to draw something every day,
for no matter how little it is it
will be well worth while, &
it will do you a world of good.

He started by letting us, as he said just draw for five minutes. Afterwards he had us tape them on the wall. He looked at them, said write your name and date the drawing and place them on his desk. Later on in the semester, he taped the drawings on the wall. He said, “Look at them and take them with you.” In this way, we could see our progress.

In his gentle manner he described building a house. First select a site, clearing the field, gathering the materials, digging and laying out the shape, the foundation and framing the structure, building from the ground up. To start a drawing, work from soft to hard, haze to definition. Build your drawing with teaching marks, “learning to see,” and then establish an anchor to refer to as you build.

The print Blackstonian is quite dramatic due to the setting sun filtering through the forest, highlighting a single tree in its later phase of life. It seems to reflect its dying light to the younger one on the right. As if It is it passing on, transferring a gift, what it is, to be seeing with human eyes.

Many years later I met an old girlfriend in New York near the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We talked about our drawing teacher with fond memories. With a smile, she told me how he died. He would go to the museum, sit on a bench in the portrait gallery surrounded by the painting he loved, and fall asleep. The gallery guards knew him and when it was time to close they would gently wake him. One Sunday he silently passed. We hugged and she said, “Wouldn’t it be great if we all went that way.”

Materials used:

Daniel Smith Traditional Black Relief Ink on Zerkall Book Smooth Cream over Somerset Satin White 250gm

Details:

• Linocut on Paper
• From a limited edition of 50
• Size: 38.1 x 55.88 x 2.54cm (unframed) / 22.86 x 30.48cm (actual image size)
• Signed and numbered on the front
• Style: Impressionistic
• Subject: Landscapes, sea and sky