Wednesday, January 25, 2006

A Student

Last afternoon, into the evening, was my drawing studies class for sophomores. I must tell you about one student in the class. I will change his name but you must trust that his real name is close to being this strange and telling: Bud Wise, I am deciding to call him. He is tall, skinny, weedy, with two tufts of mange on his chin. He seems like he sells hay or healing balms by the side of a dirt road in a fairy tale. He is a wonderful quiet kid and I feel lucky to know him. Here are some reasons why:

1. In an initial questionnaire I handed out last week, one of the questions was, What interests you most about drawing? His answer:

nature, automatic writing, boats, trains, shamanism, illusions.

2. Another question: Describe the best drawing you ever made (best according to you). He wrote a long treatise about his grandfather who was an acrobat and an airplane pilot, that he used to like to sit in his office and look at his stuff. That his grandmother collected porcelain owls and images of owls from all over the world and he is planning to draw them all. He never described a drawing.

3. He completes the first assignment incorrectly but makes beautiful drawing of himself with eyes extremely to each side, like a fish, with his hands touching, palmward, in front of him, legs crossed, like a Buddha pose, but not. He went on to explain that the drawing represented total happiness and he chose to use branches and snakes as substitute genitals, they were emanating from his lap.

More anecdotes to come. Bud Wise, I may pay you to be a student in every class I ever teach. I predict he will do everything incorrectly but better than anything I could have hoped for.

11 comments:

Corny said...

MM, your sylabus is very helpful, thanks for posting it. Did i say that already?
I'm glad you have Bud Wise in your life.
Will discuss studio visit situ on friday perhaps? I like the group idea, small group gang bang.

Mountain Man said...

Yes we will discuss. There will be an appointed hour for the mini gang bang.

fairy butler said...

hi mm. i love bud wise already. the owl collection. oh my god. can you post some of his artwork? it sounds wonderous.

group hug gang bang fun. yes, please.

Mountain Man said...

I am definitely bringing my digital camera for the future possibilities.

I made them do collaborative drawings yesterday. I think I will make them do it all the time. There was much giggling.

Anonymous said...

I just found the funniest and most self-conscious thing in my journal from 1991. Holy shit. Self-canceling madness. Perhaps will post.

Anonymous said...

Dear MM:
USB it is... (an LAN device - Universial Serial Bus - an internet support device!).
Sounds apt.

Bud Wise - sounds delightful! Would that we all had someone like that with whom to interact...errr then again, living with such a character might be a bit taxing. US has similar spells, as you can well imagine...

Studio visit...sounds marv dahling. Break out the bubbly, and the noshes. Take snaps!
Love to UF.

Anonymous said...

This Bud guy sounds Wise. Glad you have a winner MM--you deserve one.

Anonymous said...

I wish I was in you class too!

sloth said...

me too! sounds like this term is gonna be way better than last, ems...

Anonymous said...

I am sooooo hott for teacher.

Anonymous said...

i love it when students misinterpret an assignment and come up with something better. I had a student in my 2D class not understand what "thumbnail
sketches" meant. I said make thumbails of the design to try things out before executing the final project. Well, she thought that meant she had to illustrate images of thumbs with lines. She did and they turned out great! Wish I had a class full of Buds!