JANUARY 21 2018

I was going through things in the studio today and found some old sketches. Even after decades, I could remember doing a lot of the sketches I came across. I found a couple of my favorites.

The one of Burt I did right after we got married. He didn't wear glasses when we first met, but I discovered not long after we started going steady that he had trouble with his eyesight, and I made him go in to get them checked. Sure enough, he needed glasses. He told me he didn't want to wear them, because I could find some other man who wasn't a four-eyes. So I drew him with those glasses just to show him what a dummy he was. He started wearing them every day after that, even if it was just to make me happy. I thought they made him look so handsome. I still have them.

I have so many sketches of Annie. I don't know that I ever realized how many I had, and it made me sad and guilty to thumb through them all. I should have given some away to her family. I have no doubt they would have liked to have some of them, even after she ran away. I never even thought to offer.

I found one of my favorite ones. She had this pale pink blouse I coveted, which is shameful, because she so rarely got new things. She looked so pretty in it and she wore it all the time. I suppose it's natural for best friends to be jealous of one another. And she was older than me by a few years, which is a lot when you're a girl and made her seem so much more mature. How we ever became so close is a marvel, but it was our love of drawing that drew us together.

I still do a lot of sketching, but there's something about the older ones that makes them more precious to me. I wonder why. I suppose that back then, to make something I was really proud of took a lot of hard work. Now, I am a much better artist and maybe because of that I see my sketching and fooling around as practice. I have come to embrace imperfection and push less for something to feel finished. It's all more of an experiment and a study than it was back then, when I felt I needed to finish everything I set my pencil to.

That must be why these ones are some of my favorites, even though I made them what, 60 years ago.