…………I used to draw as early as I can remember. It was my most favorite thing to do….probably as soon as I could hold a pencil or a crayon….I used to lay on the kitchen floor and sketch while my mother was doing her work….walking around me. I sketched all the time in kindergarten, and I was told I hoarded the crayons….yep, it sounds like me! I can remember how disappointed I was when I went on to 1st and 2nd grade, because there was less and less time to draw, and more and more time on subjects I cared less about. I wasn’t a great student in arithmetic, spelling and reading which were the subjects that were focused on the most. I wasn’t good at memorizing….I remember we would sit on the floor in a circle with reading books in hand, and we had to take turns reading aloud. It was torture for me. I hated reading, and really didn’t read many books on my own until I was much older. Little did anyone know that I had a degree of dyslexia, and these subjects were very difficult for me. To this day I always have to check myself with numbers…writing a check or writing a date, and as many of you know giving a style number! Drawing was my sanctuary. I had excelled in other subjects, but some were so difficult no matter how much I studied I just couldn’t get a handle on them……I always had to go to summer school for math, but the teachers were much more focused and patient with us as individuals, and I did much better….not great but well enough to move on….I had the biggest collection of coloring books and crayons. I also had to have the biggest set of crayons that came out……the box of 64 colors was the best thing that ever happened! Absolutely no one was allowed to use my crayons or color in my books. If my mother let one of my cousins use them I would have a fit! She soon learned that sharing them was not something I wanted to do. They could play with any of my toys, but not my crayons or coloring books……I used to spend hours at my desk drawing and coloring. I started adding fashion sketches very early on. The ones above were probably when I was 9 or 10. I know the ones to the extreme right and the gown with the lace top and swatch were early. My style of sketching became more sophisticated as I got older. I started looking at the illustrations in catalogs my mother got, and tried to copy the style until it came naturally to me. The styles however were my ideas……Recently I came across a very old black portfolio that I thought was my final portfolio from Parsons. That was the portfolio all of the senior students worked on for our job interviews, but when I opened it….it wasn’t the portfolio. Instead it had many of these old sketches I had done so many years ago. I was happy to find them. I hadn’t seen them for years and years. It also had finished sketches from Parsons, but none of them were from my final portfolio. It’s got to be somewhere????? I will just have to keep searching…….I remember a long time ago showing these early sketches to Jac. The two of us laughed and laughed at the descriptions I wrote on the earliest ones [only the one to the bottom right has a description]. They were very corny, and I stopped doing it!!! I signed my name “lou”!!!!!on the early ones, and wisely dropped that as I got older too…It was pretty pretentious for a kid………Looking at these brought back lots of memories…….Early on I made up my mind that this is what I was going to do. I always got support, and when my Uncle Paul, who was in the fashion business, told my parents he though I was very talented, that sealed the deal. I remember in junior high school when i was 13 I started to see Broadway shows with my best friend Bobby, and for a while I wanted to design sets and costumes. I did lots of sketches of stage sets and the costumes the players would wear……. Bobby was going to write the shows and I was going to design them! Eventually Bobby decided to do something else with his life, and became a psychologist! I guess it isn’t such a giant leap being a playwright and a psychologist! I even thought for a short while of becoming an architect, but I soon found out there was a LOT OF MATH involved….not for me! I came back to my first love…. fashion……very little math needed! My high school friends were envious of me [in a good way], that I knew exactly what I wanted my life’s work to be, while they were going off to college without a clue and struggling as to what they wanted to do with their lives. We would get together at each others houses and discuss our life’s paths. I was always determined, and very focused……I never had any doubts, and put all of my energies into being successful…….Off I went to Parsons School Of Design, a very naive young boy, but knowing somehow my life would change forever.
These are brilliant, Louis! It’s amazing how our talents in childhood reveal to us what we will do as adults. As a child, I loved to draw floor plans of rooms with notes on how to decorate them. Or I drew horses, as many of my then classmates reminded me at reunions. I also loved to make “Fairy Villages” outside of twigs, leaves, pebbles and such. But unlike you, those talents were not taken seriously by the adults in my world. I was an excellent student, recognized both from my standardized tests and my performance in school. So that is where I got recognition and support. But I used to feel weighed down by my brains. I never even considered doing anything creative later in life except as a hobby. But those creative impulses just kept pushing through me and I finally succumbed! But given my academic background, it was probably no accident that I specialized in Historic Preservation!
OOPS! The above by Barbara in Virginia!
Barbara…..I guess my brains never weighed me down. Instead they propelled me in the direction my life’s work would take…..I was extremely lucky.
Reading about your love of crayons and coloring made me smile because it reminds me of one of my favorite picture books that I read to my kindergarteners. It is called “The Art Lesson” written and illustrated by Tomie DePaola. It’s about a young boy who spends all of his free time making drawings. He sneaks his treasured box of 64 Crayola crayons to school even though the teacher admonishes him and always forces him to use the small box of basic colors. It is autobiographical since the author is writing about himself and his passion for art that he had from his earliest memories. It’s a lovely story with a great ending! It sounds so similar to your story about loving art!
What a gift it is to know how you want to spend your life – no wasted time switching from career to career.
You have been truly blessed. Thanks for sharing!
Angela….it does sound like my story! I remember not liking the crayons they had in school. They were basic colors and big and fat. They even felt different from my Crayola crayons.
Very talented! I love your story about the large crayon box. I usually didn’t get that box for school. Too expensive? But my favorite color was magenta. And the smell of the crayons!
I absolutely love this story and the pictures of your very early designs! How amazing and fantastic!
My career was working with kids with individual learning differences and styles. I always loved trying to figure out what each one needed and what would work for them. Everybody has their gifts and you certainly did great things with yours!