Archive | Ramblings

When I was but a small boy, I recall sitting on the floor of my bedroom, papers strewn about and doodling in pencil on the clean, snowy white blank pieces of paper. The act of marking down thoughts and images made me think a part of me could be put on paper and left for someone to see.

My Father was a good influence on me concerning drawing. One of my most favorite things he would draw were the doodles scribbled when talking on the telephone. They were incredibly ornate, meaningless pathways of impossible images, drawn aimlessly yet purposely almost as if dad were trying to decipher the contents of the conversation in which he was engaged. I would sit and study the drawings after he had finished the phone call and sometimes I’d take them to my room and try to discover the meaning behind the whimsical scribbles. Never did I come up with anything other than that they were automatic meandering designs of lovely nothingness.

One day, my father asked if I’d like to accompany him to the art store and I gladly accepted the invitation. As we drove to the shop, I sat and thought about all the many empty sheets of paper and the pencils of all sorts that I knew were there. Dear old dad went about his shopping for oil paints, brushes, and turpentine while I wandered around looking at the pencils and paper. When my father was checking out at the register, the art store owner leaned down and handed me a box with ‘Speedball’ written in big black letters on the cover. The man then opened the kit and showed me the pen handles, steel pen points, a bottle of ink and a printed instruction book. He said ‘This is a present for you, Speedball ink & pens.’ What exactly Speedball pens were, I didn’t know but smiling I accepted the box happily. Later at home, my father sat with me at the table and showed me how to hold the pen, dip it in the ink, and draw lines and shapes by holding the pen carefully at the proper angle. He would doodle for me cleverly drawn inked characters doing odd things, standing to wait for the trolley with a nickel in hand, another holding an umbrella overhead on a sunny day and other silly scenes. They always made me laugh and hoped one day I too could draw so well with as much confidence as had my father.

I still have those pens and holders and when drawing with them often think of that day.

And leave a little bit of myself behind with every drop of ink from the pen.

Ode to French Curve
By Elvis Swift

Was there ever lovelier than thee?
Such curves and sways could never be
So beautiful as your arcs do fall
Weaving their way through drawings all

If sweeps could always smoothly flow
Somehow to you, they’d have to bow
The pen knows not the way to form
But by you whorls of roundness borne

What more, you ask is owed the French?
Than gratitude for curves invent
The tool that’s used more than another
For lines that curl like wings aflutter

Do you remember Troll dolls? They were a toy fad in the 1960’s. Everyone was crazy about them, collecting, accessorizing, trading them. It seemed to me at the time that they were about the most amazing thing ever devised by man. I bought my first one at the five and dime in the nearby shopping center (modern day strip mall), Woolworth’s I think. A naked, pink skinned small plastic doll with big eyes, a broad grin and a big headful of wild, colorful hair.

It was about that time my mother had begun to teach me how to sew. First with a simple needle and thread and then she sat me down at the electric Necchi sewing machine. The Necchi was a beautiful battleship grey-green machine, heavy too. I’d watch my mom sit and sew clothes and drapes and such seemingly making something from nothing, from fabric and thread to a shirt that I could wear to school. It amazed me, the skill that she had to make things this way. Mom sat me on a phone book in front of the machine, stacked more books on the floor so my foot could reach the pedal and instructed me how to run the thread through the proper path to the needle and fill the bobbin then set the machine to begin sewing fabric pieces together.

Back to Troll dolls. If you recollect, as soon as the little toy became a hit, accessories soon followed, hats and coats and shirts and vests for the little dolls. I began to design miniature clothes patterns and then traced the patterns onto pieces of felt or broadcloth, cut them out and stitched them on the Necchi. A vest was just one piece of felt with two holes cut for the arms. A shirt was five pieces, fronts right and left, back, and tiny sleeves. A single button and buttonhole on the front.

One of the things I remember most about the little Trolls was the smell. A brand new Troll had an unmistakable aroma of freshly molded plastic. A fragrance that still to this day when catching a waft of that particular scent takes me back to those silly happy times. None of the wardrobes for my Troll dolls are around any longer, neither doll nor clothes on their backs. But not long ago I picked up a small replica Troll doll at CVS. I sat mesmerized by the look on its face, trying to remember long forgotten things.

Oh, how I love the smell of Trolls.