There was a time in my youth when I wanted to be an artist. I suppose it could be argued that I most certainly am one today (perhaps more so than a scientist), but my creative toolbox no longer contains the pen. I abandoned drawing long ago in pursuit of the musical canvas, one that decorates my personal gallery to this day. But at times this gallery is deaf to my acoustics and wishes for a painting outside of the sonic domain. A picture can indeed impress a thousand cliches, but a thousands cliches is at a loss to impress a single picture. For example, there is a mastery that allows a single drawing or painting, such as the Mosa Lisa, to pervade volumes of discourse for centuries. This is more than can be said about many books or works of music.
I don't have the talent, however, to impress an indelible image through the hand, although some talent (albeit to only a modest degree) has leaked into developing images through the lens. Drawing takes a certain preternatural command of the pen that may have more to do with chromosomes than with a waste basket full of attempt. And even those in ownership of such chromosomal fortune must employ diligent refinement. That said, I do think I had a spark of talent years ago, that with a little more flattery, could have smoldered into a brighter flame.
The images below are a selection of drawings that I recently rediscovered upon cleaning out my closet. This is a collection of a lost art, so to speak, most of which was created from the incomplete mind of an adolescent school boy. While they certainly don't feature a command of the pen, I think they do feature an incipient talent in translating the abstract to the actual. Alas, I may never again pick up a pen, perhaps for the better. But if my sonic gallery is ever in shambles, I know just the tool to try for repair.
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