"If, for the future, he would choose a less frivolous subject and restrict himself a little, he would produce things beyond all conception." ~Goethe

One of my earliest memories is of an image I repeatedly sketched. About a quarter of the way down the page, I drew a line that represented the surface of the ocean. Below that was a figure whose head was like a shark's head in profile, but instead of a tail this character had another shark head. I remember drawing two dorsal fins on the character's head. I drew a scrawny body with arms and legs, but the double-shark face head was always about three or four times the size of the body. I never had a name for this thing; I've always been bad about titles.

I spent a lot of time until high school working on doodles and sketches. I wanted to be an artist, but I never focused on the craft as much as I should have. Papers were fun for me to write starting in late elementary school until high school because I illustrated my writing. Just recalling some of the subjects of those papers reminds me of specific phases I went through: sharks, Poe, serial killers, and the blues. I can still recall specific illustrations I did for those papers. I used to copy a lot of portraits of Poe and guitarists like Muddy Waters. My teacher never said anything about the full-color Pogo the Clown illustration I did for a paper on John Wayne Gacy. When I think about that now, I can't believe I turned it in.

Most of these interests, including the serial killer phase, came from the extensive collection of books at my grandparents' house. My grandfather was notorious. He'd go to bargain book bins and buy boxes of books on anything that seemed interesting. My grandmother read a lot as well, though she preferred the classics and items from the bestseller list. When I was about nine, I started staying with my grandparents during parts of the summer.

The range of subjects that my grandfather read about related to his careers. He was a minister and a human resources manager. He had tons of books on religion, psychology, business, and philosophy. At my age, Helter Skelter and Son of Sam made more sense than Joy of Sex or the Power of Myth, but I gave them all a chance. During those summers, between pages of my grandfather's nonfiction and my grandmother's fiction, I probably developed my multifarious reading interests.

Since college, one of my rituals during vacations has been to go to the library and grab a bunch of books on art. Yesterday, I made my first of what will most likely be many trips.

Here's what I pulled:

Chris Ware: Daniel Raeburn

Exploitation Poster Art: Ed. by Tony Nourmand and Graham Marsh

In the Studio: Visits with Contemporary Cartoonists: Todd Hignite

Damned: An Illustrated History of the Devil: Robert Muchembled



Happy summer reading and looking.