From the Epilogue



Five of the drawings in this book were made when I was a student at South Hadley High School in South Hadley, Massachusetts. The art teacher, Mr. King, suggested I try drawing from life, rather than copying photographs as I had been laboriously doing in the oil paint- ings I made in art classes with a private teacher. Those oil paintings, which took six to eight months to complete, were “suitable for framing” and dead on arrival.



In looking around for a subject it seemed natural to me to make portraits of Bonnie, my cat. He proved an obedient and compliant model, willing to sit still for whatever time I needed. Mostly he napped.



A painfully shy student, I was thrilled when Mr. King invited me to exhibit my work in the lobby of the school. This was my first





exhibit and perhaps the only recognition I received for anything at South Hadley High.



For the exhibition, the drawings were taped around the outside edges to pieces of cardboard with bright blue upholstery tape making a kind of inharmonious blue plastic mat.



Decades later, in getting ready to move from New York to California, I came across a portion of this collection of drawings stored in a closet. Over the years some of them had gone missing, perhaps the best ones lost or given away, but the rest were in fairly good condition. Surprisingly, the certainly non-archival upholstery tape remained firmly secured to the paper but had not otherwise damaged the drawings.







I make no claims for the quality, distinction, or precursive elements of these drawings. I simply enjoyed finding them and wanted to keep a record of my early existence as an artist.



The cat on page 19 and 21 is of PussPuss and was made in the 1970’s. The cat with the ball was made at some unknown time, and the cover image of Russell was made years later but they seemed to go with this set of drawings.



A.M.Rousseau

2010