"I was attending art school in 1959, under the spell of a great teacher and artist Mr. Jepson. Everybody admired Jepson, we all talked like him, we all drew like him. I knew I had to find my own markings, my own lines. So, at lunch break I would take my drawing box and paper, a bag with my lunch and a collection of popsicle sticks to the park. McArthur Park, or Westlake Park as it was once known, is near downtown Los Angeles. The center of it is a lake, just the right size to stroll around or rent a boat and drift along with the swans and ducks. With my box and lunch,
I would walk around the lake, past the men and women feeding pigeons, to a grove of palm trees. Under the trees sat rows of picnic tables with men of all ages, shapes and color playing checkers, chess, cards and dominoes; talking, yelling, laughing, spending their time together in the park. I would find a place to sit, eat my lunch, the whittle a point on a popsicle stick, dip it in ink and begin drawing.
I dropped out of art school in the beginning of summer 1960, and rented a studio in an old building at the east end of Hollywood Boulevard. My studio was on the second floor, which also housed three other studios, one of which was rented by a young actor, Dennis Hopper. Dennis was better known for his photography than acting back then. He had rented the studio because he had begun experimenting with painting. Dennis was a protege of the painter Emerson Wolfer, and I had been a student of Wolfer. I had started a painting based on one of the drawings from "Men In The Park". At the time I was obsessed with Cezanne. Reproductions of his paintings covered my walls. Dennis was discovering Jackson Pollack. He had a canvas stretched on the floor and paint pots with paint dripping over sticks. Color swirled over the cans respecting no edge, merging onto the floor, into a trail of footprints leading out his door, one path to the bathroom, the other to my studio door where he would call to me, "Hey man, will you come take a look?" I went over to his studio and he asked me what I thought. I looked and said something like "I think Jackson has already gone there, Dennis." He looked at me with a hurt look and then stomped over to my studio, look at the painting I was laboring on and remark "Man, I think you are in the wrong century!"
I would walk around the lake, past the men and women feeding pigeons, to a grove of palm trees. Under the trees sat rows of picnic tables with men of all ages, shapes and color playing checkers, chess, cards and dominoes; talking, yelling, laughing, spending their time together in the park. I would find a place to sit, eat my lunch, the whittle a point on a popsicle stick, dip it in ink and begin drawing.
I dropped out of art school in the beginning of summer 1960, and rented a studio in an old building at the east end of Hollywood Boulevard. My studio was on the second floor, which also housed three other studios, one of which was rented by a young actor, Dennis Hopper. Dennis was better known for his photography than acting back then. He had rented the studio because he had begun experimenting with painting. Dennis was a protege of the painter Emerson Wolfer, and I had been a student of Wolfer. I had started a painting based on one of the drawings from "Men In The Park". At the time I was obsessed with Cezanne. Reproductions of his paintings covered my walls. Dennis was discovering Jackson Pollack. He had a canvas stretched on the floor and paint pots with paint dripping over sticks. Color swirled over the cans respecting no edge, merging onto the floor, into a trail of footprints leading out his door, one path to the bathroom, the other to my studio door where he would call to me, "Hey man, will you come take a look?" I went over to his studio and he asked me what I thought. I looked and said something like "I think Jackson has already gone there, Dennis." He looked at me with a hurt look and then stomped over to my studio, look at the painting I was laboring on and remark "Man, I think you are in the wrong century!"
