BECOMING AN ARTIST

This is the second of several posts on my experience of transitioning from medicine to art. This mini essay was first published here three years ago.

What am I doing sitting on this pile of trash in an empty city lot?

It was a Thursday morning around 9 AM, sometime in the spring-summer of the mid 1970s, a time when I should have been attending Medical Grand Rounds at the hospital. This was a weekly presentation by the medical residents of interesting case reports to the rest of the house staff and attending physicians. It was, and perhaps still is, a weekly ritual, one that I had been attending faithfully for the past 6 years.

So what was I doing sitting on a stack of old mattresses in the middle of an empty city lot? I was drawing the back of a row of dilapidated houses, entranced by the texture and shapes of the scene before me, not knowing I was in the process of discovering the artist that had been tucked away somewhere deep within, a process that would take about 4-5 years. To say it was pure pleasure would be less than true; guilt and insecurity were sitting right beside me that morning. My lines of thought went something like this; “what am I doing sitting out here when I should be at Grand Rounds? This is ridiculous, thinking that I am an artist, or could become one. All I can do is draw small sketches with this Parker 45 fountain pen, shit, I can’t even paint!” And on and on, you get the point.

But, guilt and insecurity were not enough to pull me away, and I found myself spending more Thursday mornings in the city streets with my sketchbook. I carried a small canvas shoulder bag holding my sketchbook, papers, pencils, and always, my faithful Parker 45 fountain pen. Within a few years of that experience I began cutting back on my office hours to create more time for my art.

This is the scene that held so much attraction for me:

and another...



And here is a later watercolor of the complete scene...one of several I painted...could not resist the colors and the textures...especially the texture.

WHAT WAS I THINKING

when I drew these pictures, sometime back in the late 60's and early 70's? It was years before I ever seriously considered art as a second career. Drawing was a hobby, copying pictures from magazines, and my primary interest was faces and people. Somewhere along the way this interest gradually shifted to architecture and urban landscapes, and later still to the rural landscape. This is true for my studio work, however my sketch book continues to remain a repository for figurative work.

I am still in the inventory taking mode in the studio, but am almost finished. Yesterday I photographed a portfolio of early sketches, drawings, and paintings. Here are a few more early "Renzullis".





So many things to be drawn and painted...and so little time.

BEFORE THE PAINT

there was pencil, pen, and ink. In my year end browsing through old portfolios and files I've found these old drawings, done before I began exploring color, first with markers and later with watercolor.


tree done with sepia pen

pen, brush, and ink.



pen and ink



pencil drawing...9th St. Market in Philly

I enjoy looking back on old work, seeing how my art has evolved. There are things I can do now that were not possible in those early years, but there was a freedom and freshness then that is easily lost in the more elaborate studio paintings. It was fun to see some of this recaptured in the clay drawings from the Italian experience.

IT’S NOT TRUE

that all I’m doing in Italy is eating. I don’t know where that misconception came from...certainly not from all the pictures of food and food shops I’ve been posting. Well, besides enjoying the tastes of Italy I really have been paying attention to my art, at least to sketches and small paintings. Some have been done in the street, completely or partially, and others drawn in my makeshift studio from photos I have taken. The verdict is still out on which of the two I prefer.

Here are 3 samples from the sketchbook:


from the terrace ink and colored markers

Piazza San Francesco ink drawing done on the spot. Pastel added later

Via Collegia Di Spagna ink and watercolor done from photo

and here is a photo of my temporary studio...

THE SIXTIES REVISITED

For me the sixties meant medical school, internship, residency and 2 years in the USN medical corps serving with the 2nd Marine Air Wing in Cherry Point NC. What little discretionary time I had was spent catching up on sleep and apparently drawing.





It has been fun browsing through these drawings, remembering how much I enjoyed the pencil, and the figure.

CREATIVITY

I can only understand the process of creativity as it relates to my own work, and even then the understanding is incomplete and fragile. Of the many volumes written on the subject, The Courage to Create, by Rollo May has been most helpful to me. May proposes that the basic element in creativity is the encounter between the artist and the subject (or object). The artist’s response to the encounter, which can run the gamut of emotional and mental reactions, and the intensity of the response, is what generates the creativity.

This struck a chord with me. since from the very beginning my art was the result of my response to the urban environment. I loved the busy texture and fabric of the city streets with their storefronts, markets, and curbside signage and paraphernalia. I spent endless hours on the streets of Wilmington and Philadelphia with my sketchbook and camera gathering material for my paintings ( I have always been a studio artist, limiting by on site work to quick sketches.) After all of these years this attraction remains unabated, even though it is now shared with my love the rural landscape with assorted barns, trees, and big skies.

Because of this experience the notion that creativity arising out of an encounter resonated with me. The idea can easily be expanded to include more than the world around us. The artist can encounter a sound, an idea, or a memory; almost anything can elicit a creative response. The more an artist explores and paints the greater his or her facilities become, leading to an expanded area of interest and ambition, and greatly increases the chances for those significant encounters.