"All of the (male) artists were pleasant, many were helpful, but none ever asked me to join them for lunch... because I was a woman. It wasn’t until twenty years later that I got a little angry about it… in retrospect."
- Barbara Bradley, speaking about her early days working in a New York City commercial art studio

Monday, March 22, 2010

Inspiring Female Designers Exhibition

Jenny Swadosh, Assistant Archivist of the Kellen Archives at Parsons, The New School for Design sent a note the other day:

Jenny wrote, "I thought you and your readers would be interested to know that we are featuring work by the illustrators Lorraine Fox, Esta Nesbitt, and Andree Golbin in an upcoming exhibition at the New School in New York. All the items in the exhibition come from the collections of the Kellen Archives at Parsons The New School for Design."


"The exhibition is free. If your readers would like to conduct further research in our collections, they are welcome to contact us. Patrons do not have to be affiliated with Parsons or The New School or any other academic institution to conduct research at the Kellen Archives."

* The scan of the Lorraine Fox original above is courtesy of Heritage Auctions

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Ruth Ruhman

At this time I have no information on Ruth Ruhman.






* My Ruth Ruhman Flickr set

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Mia Carpenter: "... what a wonderful thing drawing is."

In September 2009, when I wrote very briefly about Mia Carpenter on my other blog, Today's Inspiration, someone commented how glad they were to see her work being showcased. Since then I've managed to actually locate Mia. Today, I'm thrilled to have Mia writing about her career, accompanied by more of her beautiful artwork :

Mia writes, "I studied at Art Center College of Design with Jack Potter, one of the greats of 1950s - '60s illustration. He taught fashion illustration and was a great influence. He so excited his students about his subject and made it possible for us to experience what a wonderful thing drawing is."


"The Impressionist painters were working their way into the public interest in the arts. My first art books were of their work and later the work of Bonnard, Vuillard, and Matisse."

"Graduated from Art Center College of Design 1956, married a month later to an ACCD design major. Moved to New York that August and continued to work and live there for the next 11 years. In NY there was an endless list of influences... Robert Weaver, Lorraine Fox, the fashion illustrators Eric (Carl Erikson), Sylvia Braverman, Evaline Ness, too many to list. As for illustrators that were personal friends... my closest friend was Miyo Endo who did a lot of work for Redbook. Robert Quackenbush was a buddy from AC who went on to be a noted children's book illustrator."

"My artist's representative was Joan Chasson who I could not have done without. Sarah Reader was my model for most years in Manhattan. I did a lot of work relating to kids. She could model for ages over 10 yrs. to the most sophisticated women with her slim agile body and ability to hold a pose. We did do photo reference but mainly did drawing from the live model for fashion as well as other kinds of illustration."



"Sometimes the drawings done directly from the model suficed as finished work. Sometimes, especially with story illustration, using tempera and acrylic painting and pastel work, I would start with drawings from the model sketches or from photos and always drew environments, perspectives, accessories etc. from reference. With the painted and pastel work I would incorporate the sketches and backgrounds and transfer them to board of some kind and then finish with the appropriate medium."


"Moved to Paris for 1 1/2 years where I cared for our daughter and John Hoernle, my ex husband, worked with a friend to start a small ad agency. We moved from Paris to Los Angeles and I have continued living and working in this city. I first worked in retail fashion illust. as I also had done in NY and when the bottom fell out of that field... started doing sketching for entertainment ad agencies."

"During the years of doing entertainment sketching it was often vital to draw from memory because of the deadlines. I grew to appreciate that approach having to constantly examine and trust what I thought I knew and could reproduce visually. "


"I have been very fortunate in my career to have worked steadily from the early NY days to retirement (around 2004), moving from LA to NY where illustration was flourishing in so many more areas than just story illustration. Every step in the almost 50 years of making a living that I loved involved really lucky timing. It goes without saying that being willing to work ceaselessly with difficult people and new challenges was a must while, in my case, being frightened of failure for more years than I'd like to admit."

* My Mia Carpenter Flickr set

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Tina Cacciola


Lord only knows what artist Tina Cacciola and the editors at Coronet were thinking back December 1956 when they chose this macabre black and red colour scheme for their story of the Littlest Snowman. Very festive... for Hallowe'en, perhaps!

Yet this odd little tale, which probably scared the dickens out of every little child whom it was read to, is strangely appealing to me. Probably my German heritage, where St. Nickalaus brings coals and a willow switch for bad little children, the better to whip them with. No jolly Sundblom santas there, St. Nickalaus cut an intimidating figure, always slightly stern-faced. Menacing even...

You can find the entire eight pages of pictures and story here.

And so another year of Today's Inspiration draws to a close. I'll be taking a hiatus 'til after the New Year - but check in regularly for updates of old TI scans on my Flickr account. I promise you'll find at least one new set each day between now and January 1st, 2006.

Many thanks to everyone who has taken the time to comment on the TI blog or emailed me in private - your words of encouragement mean so much to me... I truly appreciate it!

I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Mary Horton

Mary Horton's work appears in many of the 1964 volumes of the Childcraft encyclopedia/textbook series.


At first glance, because it is such understated work, one might dismiss it as being that sort of bland textbook art not worth a second look. But take a moment to linger over the details - or lack of them - and you quickly realize that Horton completely understood how to reduce the elements in her work to the bare essentials and still retain a wonderful authenticity. The important information is all there. "Reduction" is the toughest skill for an illustrator to master. Too often we become bogged down in superfluous surface detail that actually detracts from the beautiful simplicity of the core of our work.


Ten years earlier, when Horton did the advertising piece below, she was not quite there. You can see the beginnings of the style she will mature into a decade later... but the cute factor is lacking, isn't it? Horton had not yet fully grasped the nature of the formula we've been looking at all week: how to draw a cute kid.


Bingo! Who couldn't fall in love with this poor little waif?



And when you see a piece as well composed and visually interesting as the one below, you know you're looking at the work of an inspiring illustrator.


Take a closer look at the full size versions of these illustrations in my Mary Horton Flickr set.

Meg Wohlberg

At this time I have no information on Meg Wohlberg.

Friday, March 12, 2010

Martha Sawyers: (1902-1988)

"As this is being written, Miss Sawyers has just donned the uniform of the Army Correspondent and is off for the Far East to make pictorial records of the war for Life magazine."

- From the book, Forty Illustrators and How They Work.


"Miss Sawyer had lived and painted in Peiping until the advancing tide of Japanese aggression had all but shut off her escape to Shanghai. Indeed, the war was raging at the Marco Polo bridge two weeks before her departure."

In the early days of the 20th century, in the tiny town in Cuero, Texas, a young girl read a book called "Religion of the Far East." That book, filled with pictures of exotic people and places and stories of peculiar ceremonies would so profoundly influence the young girl that she decided to one day go experience those fascinating lands for herself.


That young Texan girl was named Martha Sawyers and before she was done she had drawn and painted her way through "Paris, Bali, Penang, Singapore, Sumatra, Java, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Peiping," according to her article in Forty Illustrators and How They Work.


When she and illustrator husband, William Ruesswig, returned to America in 1937, Sawyers had a show of her artworks at the Marie Sterner Galleries. Collier's magazine art editor, Bill Chessman happened to see her exhibition and (as luck would have it) was in need of an illustrator with a solid understanding of Asian cultures.


And so, without planning, Martha Sawyers became "an illustrator of Asiatic lore" - called upon by major clients of all sorts who required an artist who could handle the depiction of other races and cultures with passion and sensitivity.


Martha Sawyers was a remarkable woman, described as follows in the catalogue that accompanied one long-ago show of her pastel drawings:

"Martha Sawyers came out of the heart of Texas... she brings us a bright picture of the other side of the earth, unbelievable peoples and places."


"Only a great love for these could have exacted the hundreds of paintings asiatic-oriental. Hard work that perfected a technique and color brilliant and authentic."


The other day I received the generous contribution of this portrait of Gilbert Bundy, courtesy of his nephew, Jeff Holloway. Bundy was a war artist with the U.S. Army in the Pacific theatre during WWII. He experienced horrific frontline combat first hand on many of the most infamous beaches while accompanying the advancing American troops.

This piece being dated 1944, one has to wonder if Bundy and Sawyers meet by chance while they were both stationed in those embattled regions of the Far East?



In the book, "Forty Illustrators and How They Work", we learn that Martha Sawyers studied with George Bridgman and George Luks at the Art Students League. Luks was a painter of "broad luscious brush-work" but Sawyers' approach was, we are told, more like that of a draftsman than a painter. It is suggested that she must therefore have "had greater sympathy for the teaching of Bridgman," the constructive anatomist.


Sawyers' first job after graduating was in a studio that made stained glass. There she learned a technique of painting with a needle, scratching into flat colour to derive tonal variations. The artist transposed this technique to her illustration work: laying down thin washes of oil paint heavily diluted with mineral spirits to facilitate fast drying. She would then build up form with "crayon-like" brush strokes of those same thin, rapidly drying oils.


Finally (returning to her earliest professional experience in the stained glass studio) Sawyers would scrape through the dried colour layers of paint with a knife, revealing the canvas base colour. The result is the familiar textural look - a look almost of a pastel or crayon drawing - so typical of a Martha Sawyers illustration.



In early 1958, Martha Sawyers and husband Bill Reusswig once more felt the urgent pull of the Far East calling to them. They purchased plane tickets ($1,800 each) which were "good for a year and interchangeable with a dozen different airlines," and set out another adventure.



Writing for an article in the April 1959 issue of American Artist (just a little over a year after their return) Bill Reusswig reported, "The course was roughly planned but without reservations beyond Tokyo."


And what a course it was! The couple left their home in Milford CT, flew to San Francisco; then on to Honolulu, Wake Island, Tokyo, Hong Kong...




... Bangkok, Chiengmai, Rangoon, Calcutta, Patna, Katmandu...


... New Delhi, Agra, Jaipur, Bombay, Karachi...



... Istanbul, Athens, Rome, Paris, Madrid, Lisbon - and finally, after many long months and with bulging portfolios, by klipper ship back home to New York.


Reusswig said, "As we had covered a lot of this territory before, we wanted to feel free to 'follow the bend in the river'."

The couple often stayed in the humble homes of those who were the subjects of their drawings and paintings. Reusswig recounted, "Even though we did not speak their native tongue, a quick sketch was better than sign language. And even if you got lost, more often than not you could draw your way home."

These pieces are, I think, some of the best of Martha Sawyers work that I've seen. Even so, they barely begin to reflect the stories Reusswig describes in the article of the couple's year-long adventure!


He concludes, "The whole trip was a wonderful experience, and in addition to the memories it will always excite, we brought back enough authentic pictures and sketches to feed on for many months to come."

Below, a couple of very cool examples of Martha Sawyer's earliest illustrations for Collier's, courtesy of TI list member David Apatoff.


David wrote a terrific post about Martha Sawyers on his excellent blog, Illustration Art.


Fast forward three decades... here's the most current work I was able to find by Martha Sawyers, from Readers Digest Condensed Books, 1964.


The editors must have felt Martha Sawyers was a natural choice for this version of the famous bible story of Mary, Joseph and the birth of Jesus.


Having travelled extensively in these regions, and being considered a specialist in illustrating the people of Asia, Sawyers was no doubt completely comfortable with the assignment.


To research the people, places and costuming she would have had to look no further than those bulging portfolios of paintings and sketches mentioned by her husband in the American Artist article from April '59 - the accumulated wealth of that trip through all those many Eastern countries a year earlier.






Its interesting to see where one ends up when one "follows the bend of the river"...


In the early days of the 20th century, a young girl in Cuero, Texas, fascinated by a book called "Religion of the Far East" began a life-long journey of artistic and cultural discovery...


... a journey that lead, six decades later, to an assignment illustrating the story that is the centerpiece of Western religion.


Martha Sawyers, born in 1902, died in 1988.

* My Martha Sawyers Flickr set.

Monday, March 8, 2010

Marion Larson

At this time I have no information on Marion Larson.

Nell Wilson (1901 - 1985)

I found this illustration by an artist named Nell Wilson in an early '50s issue of Maclean's - Canada's weekly news magazine. But Wilson wasn't a Canadian... Maclean's often picked up second rights to illustrations originally published in the U.S. and in this case, it appears that they also purchased artwork from as far away as Australia!


My research on the Internet turned up a listing for Nell Wilson at this site. There are no examples of her work, but the site provides this brief summary of her career:

"Many of Nell Wilson's illustrations accompanied advertisements published in the Australian Womens Weekly during the 1940s."

For now, that's all I have to share with you on Nell Wilson.

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Lorraine Fox (1922 - 1976)


The first time Murray Tinkelman met Lorraine Fox (someone whose work he had much admired) he was just beginning his tenure at New York's vaunted Charles E. Cooper studio. By that time (around 1956) Lorraine Fox was already well established in the illustration business and at Cooper's. "Lorraine was a very quiet, very reserved lady," says Murray, "and underline "lady." She was a lady. Very elegant; a very handsome woman."

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"Lorraine lived in... that world of decorative illustration. It wasn't quite cartooning, it wasn't quite narrative illustration, it was a kind of symbolic illustration that depended on folk art as a root source."

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Murray continues, "[In spite of having no formal illustration education] I knew enough that what Lorraine was doing was brilliant. Anybody could tell what Al Parker did and what Norman Rockwell did was brilliant, but Lorraine was doing brilliant stuff that didn't depend on the academic foundation of Parker or Rockwell."

On meeting her for the first time, he says, "I was disappointed at her lack of response to what I was doing. She didn't say, "Aww, that's crap," or anything demeaning, but she just looked a little... 'cool' about it."

That cool initial impression didn't last long. Some ten years later, in an interview with Famous Artist Magazine, Fox, while discussing a critical turning point in her artistic growth described meeting "a young painter who told [me] about his painting experience with Reuben Tam at the Brooklyn Museum of Art."

The young painter was, of course, Murray Tinkelman. The two would not only become respected colleagues, but life-long friends. Thanks to Murray's encouragement, Fox went on to study with Reuben Tam and later said, "It changed [my] thinking. I would run into people who would say, "I see you've been Tamified."

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Lorraine Fox is a mid-20th century illustrator of great distinction - because she was so successful as a female illustrator in what was then a male dominated industry, because she never wavered from pursuing her own unique artistic vision at a time when the business very nearly insisted on a sort of standardized 'literal realism,' and because, perhaps most remarkably, she accomplished this not from the fringes of the business, but ensconced in what was then truly the centre of the 1950s commercial art universe - the Charles E. Cooper studio.

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Cooper's was the place where commercial art was purchased by America's largest advertisers for top dollar. It's salesmen were not exactly attuned to - or receptive of - highly individualized, style-driven illustration. In spite of the odds, Lorraine Fox held her own and flourished there on both advertising and editorial assignments, her work appearing steadily in the major magazines of the day.

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Thanks to Matt Dicke, who provided me with scans, I now have a copy of the entire 1967 interview with Lorraine Fox.

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Let's read what she had to say about her career, about art, life and learning - in her own words.

Close-Up of the Artist: Lorraine Fox by Mary Ann Guitar

Famous Artists magazine: How long have you and your husband lived out here?

Lorraine Fox: About 17 years. We met at Pratt, where we were art students together. He was the best in the class. After graduation he was in the service for several years. When he got out, we had saved enough money to buy a house. We got married and moved here in 1950.

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FA: Did you grow up on Long Island? Is that why you chose this part of the world?

Fox: I was born in Brooklyn but we moved to Glendale, Long Island, when I was six, so I did grow up here. My mother lives about 20 minutes away, which is very convenient. She loves to cook and she's always bringing me a quart of soup or something else she's made.

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FA: Did someone in your family encourage you to study art?

Fox: My brother, the cartoonist Gill Fox, was six years older than I and I used to see him draw.

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I was kind of a tomboy and I worshipped my brother.

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I guess I wanted to be like him, in both athletics and drawing. Some psychiatrist could figure that out!

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FA: Were you an instant success as soon as you began drawing in school?

Fox: In grammar school I won art awards. I got medals for posters I made for a Humane Society competition. I've always been fond of animals. In high school I suppose I was pretty much known as an artist. Instead of a business course I took a general course, because you could have more art by taking that. I think I had a good start in high school and I had a teacher who became interested in me.

Fox01

She asked to talk to my parents and told them that she thought I should have more training. She was the one who recommended Pratt. It was probably one of the best conversations my parents ever had. Pratt really opened my eyes.

Fox02

FA: In what way?

Fox: I had a teacher named Will Burton who was leading the students toward a cerebral approach to commercial art, which is related to painting. I got a very commercial background at Pratt, but Burton's influence was most important, although I didn't fully realize it at the time. At Pratt, you were exposed to illustration, advertising design, and industrial design your first year. I took advertising design, mainly through the influence of my father. He thought this would enable me to get a job in an advertising agency doing layouts. It was more of a sure thing than doing illustration.

FA: And was it easy to break into an agency when you graduated?

Fox: Yes. I got my first job in an agency. The man I worked for would say, for example, "We have a medical thing we want to sell here," and he'd give me the headline and I was supposed to come up with a dozen fast sketches,

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... but I was not really an idea lady. Instead, I would get an idea I liked and finish completely and carefully.

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He finally said that I should get an agent and free-lance.

FA: Do you think he was trying to get rid of you?

Fox: Maybe. No, I don't really think so. He liked what I did and he took an interest in me. I didn't have any trouble getting an agent. Somebody saw that I had potential. If I were trying to break in today, though, I never would have made it. The competition now is so terrific. Then the agent went into the Army and his sister took over. I sold myself, too, through my portfolio. I made samples. I've been making samples for 20 years, only now they're paintings.

(Below, the earliest Lorraine Fox art example I've found; from 1945)
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FA: Did you develop a recognizable style, something an agent could sell, as soon as you began free-lancing?

Fox: I suppose you could call the kind of thing I did "decorative design." It leaned toward the primitive and people liked it.

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I did quite a lot of magazine covers and spot drawings then and I was good at painting food.
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All the time I was doing these things, though, I was constantly annoyed.

Fox22

People would look at my work and say, "How cute," or "How feminine." I'd kind of smile and say, "Thank you."

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That word "cute" got in my hair. I'd ask myself, "Why can't I be more of an artist?"

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I was living with one and my husband was leading me (I didn't tell him this) in a new direction. He went with Cooper Studios when he got out of the service and I joined Cooper as a free-lancer. I was very influenced by the Cooper scene. I wanted to learn to draw better, for one thing. Finally we met a young painter, and he told us about his painting experience with Reuben Tam at the Brooklyn Museum Art School. A lot of guys at the studio, about 16 illustrators, started studying with Tam at night and so did I. It changed the thinking of all of us.

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Later, I would run into people who would say, "I see you've been Tamified."

Famous Artists magazine: How did Tam change your thinking? What would you say was his biggest influence on you?

Lorraine Fox: He was only pointing out to us what painters have known for centuries. It was not a new thing. It was really an old story. It involves the search for self.

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There really is no such thing as style, but there is a personal inner vision which is intrinsic to everyone. This is really what we admire in great artists. Knowing yourself will lead to originality, and this is extremely important to anyone's career. There is no need to copy another artist's technique when you can depend entirely and confidently on yourself.

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FA: How did Tam develop this confidence?

Fox: He would simply criticize what we did, not tell us what to do. Always in his criticism he would ask, "Why did you do it this way?" You would try to explain that so-and-so had influenced you and he would say, "It's not original."

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Finally you would try to sketch out a figure in a way that nobody had ever done and you would bring it in (it might not be very good) and he'd say, "This is original." Then you had to elaborate on the originality. It didn't have anything to do with being tight or loose. The emphasis was on originality. Like your fingerprints. Nobody can ever have the same set.

Fox45

He never told us, "This is the way..." He knew, of course, that the search has to come from you, the way you live, dream, the way your senses respond to eating, sleeping, drinking, the movies, whatever is affecting you. Everybody has the potential for originality once they learn about themselves.

Fox38

FA: What did you learn about yourself?

Fox; What I learned was that I had a tremendous drive. When I could do something about what was bothering me as an artist, I changed in many ways. I changed my reading habits, my way of seeing while travelling.

Fox46

I began to carry a pad and pencil around and I would draw.

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(Now I draw everything, in my home, my garden, on the train. I use my family, my cats, as subjects, whatever is around at the moment.)

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I clipped pictures from magazines. I went to galleries and museums. That's what painting classes did, they made me able to understand what men like Vermeer were striving for. And the Renaissance painters. Giotto. I love Giotto's work. I like contemporary art, too.

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About ten or fifteen years ago the abstract expressionists formed The Club - de Kooning, Gorky, Matta, Pollock and others. A friend of ours took us to The Club and we sat in on meetings and listened to the way these men thought. This is what good art is all about, and what good commercial art is all about.

FA: What personal qualities do you think contribute to success in art?

Fox: It's a combination of this capability for self-search and drive and talent. I don't necessarily put talent first. If you are very honest with yourself you can see where your talent lies. Going to galleries and museums will help; so will going to underground movies and whatever else is happening related to art. You begin to place yourself and you see where you fit in.

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Lots of people don't want to face this. They don't want to have to admit, "I'm not this big a deal," or "I have a hell of a lot to learn." But for an artist this is a serious search.

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If you take it that seriously you will begin to find out all of these things. If you have what I'm talking about, you can be one of the busiest artists around. As you strengthen yourself your work will become more confident. If you have confidence you can achieve a top level of quality.

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FA: Did your approach to commercial art change radically while you were immersed in painting classes?

Fox: It changed. I began turning down stuff. When somebody wanted me to paint food or do "some of those funny little figures," I would say, "I'm not doing that kind of thing any more."

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I began cutting off some of my business. But my illustration was getting better and I began getting double spreads in the magazines.

It was never quite right - quite where it should have been. I wasn't really ready. But people could see that something was happening to me. The art scene was changing, too. Art directors were looking for new things. The amount of avant-garde illustration went way up. I realized that the painting and the commercial art had to come together.

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I studied with Tam for five years and finally it did come together.

Famous Artists magazine: You have been working on this synthesis [painting and commercial art] for a number of years. Is it a success?

(Below, an example of Lorraine Fox's style at the time of the 1967 interview)
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Lorraine Fox: The adjustment has been tremendous. I don't know about success yet. A lot of people look at my work and say, "I can see it's your work." Then someone else will say, "Gee, it's beautiful, but it doesn't look like a Lorraine Fox!" I don't know how he means that but it makes me very happy.

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Now I'm painting on my own - landscape painting, figurative painting. I'm getting a direction. People think an artist can sit down and do anything. I can't. I wish I had the ability to cope with three or four things at once but I have to finish one thing before I can start on something else.

(Below, Lorraine Fox children's book illustration from 1966)
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FA: That must make it difficult to free-lance because you are necessarily starting one thing and finishing another as well as lining up work. How long does it take you to do a major illustration?

Fox: Well, the Ladies Home Journal just gave me a month to do a Christmas story illustration.

(Below, a Lorraine Fox Christmas illustration for McCall's from 3 years before this 1967 interview)
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Actually, they ended up by giving me less than a month. it took me a week to do the sketch which showed my concept of the illustration. This involved getting the idea, getting the model. I could have done the finish in a week but it took longer. The concept is right up to today's kind of thinking. The design and technique come out of my paintings.

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The difference between painting and illustration is this: An illustration must be specifically related to the story - you have to make the boy, the dog, the Santa Claus and the angel in the copy.

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In painting, the ideas are related to your personal imagination. The ideal thing would be to have them use my paintings as illustrations.

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FA: The need to stay contemporary, "with it," is so important for the artist who wants to reflect his time. Do you find that teaching helps you keep in touch with what's happening? Do you get something from your young students?

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Fox: Once you begin to find out what you are all about, the young don't influence you that much.

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If you're in touch, if you are curious and inquisitive, you're bound to be in tune. I happen to have that kind of instinct and so does my husband.

FA: You have advised students to understand their own character. For example, you ask them, "Are you fastidious or sloppy? Do you have a tendency to line things up neatly or let them fall to chaos around you?" What about your character? Do you like to line things up?

Fox: I think I do but I'm kind of sloppy, which I like. After the painting classes I decided that I just couldn't cope with the neatness. I guess I'm still neat, though, maybe semi-neat. I think there is a basic rigidity in me and it does come out. The reason I'm able to say this is that my husband is not. I'm able to get a clearer picture of me looking at him.

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Everything is relative.

Famous Artists magazine: How do you cope with housekeeping and, at the same time, work so hard at painting and commercial illustration and teach as well?

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Lorraine Fox: The work interferes a great deal with my home life and my social life. I haven't had a vacation in two years. I work all the time, even weekends.

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I have very little time for closet cleaning. Gracie Allen once said that after she retired she would finally straighten her drawers and clean the closets. I feel that way. I have a cleaning woman once a week but the rest we do ourselves. I happen to have a unique husband. He helps a great deal. He's willing to to do more but I don't want him to do things like the dishes. He's a magnificent cook because he comes from Italian background. His father cooked and he learned how and he's very good.

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But that bothers me. It takes too much of his time. When we both have deadlines and he's pressed and I'm pressed, we sometimes don't eat until eleven at night.

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FA: Does it help, living with another artist? Do you feel freer, more productive?

Fox: At this point in my life I couldn't live with anybody except an artist or someone like my husband. I don't think anybody except another artist would tolerate me.

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You get older and you decide, "My God, the time is closing in and if I'm ever going to do anything I'd better start. The small scratch I make is so meaningless, at least I can try to do more."

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It gives me a reason for being an artist. It is a never-ending search.

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I am far from being the kind of draftsman I would like to be. The struggle is what keeps you alive - the struggle is important, not the end result. The end result becomes meaningless.

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The attempt is what it's all about. The hope that maybe it can become better.


* Many thanks to Matt Dicke for providing the scans of the Lorraine Fox interview pages from the Winter 1967 issue of Famous Artists magazine being presented this week. Thanks to Heritage Auctions for allowing me to use scans from their archives.