Art Pledge

Back about 1989, I was drawing and painting quite a bit. Several art classes at Cal State Long Beach helped keep that prominent. I would do a significant amount of drawing for fun, and occasionally tape one up on my apartment wall. Most of these would stay up for a month or so, and then be displaced by another. There was one drawing, featuring three mushrooms on a stark landscape, that reamined taped to the inside of my door for a long time.


It was November 27, and I'd just done a drawing that I liked, and decided to tape it up on my door as well. That's when I noticed for the first time since I'd first put it up that the drawing already on the door was dated November 27, exactly one year earlier. Beyond that, both of these drawings seemed to sum up my state of mind at the time. So the second drawing went up. Mid-November the next year, I decided to purposely make a "State of Mind" drawing to keep it all going. I did, actually several drawings from which I selected one. As years passed, I kept it up. One year, I was in a printmaking class, and did a series of Lithographs titled "Another November 27", on the day.


But then the art classes were done. I hit a long art dry spell, and wasn't drawing at all. But when 11/27 came the next year, I pulled out the pad and drew with fervor, making a series for the day. And so on for every year since. I've had times when I have been drawing regularly, times when I haven't been doing anything at all, but I always do something on November 27. In Boston for 2000, I had to stop at an art store and grab a pad and pencils to accomplish my goal. In 2001, I had a very busy day, and didn't get to sit and draw the way I wanted to. Late in the evening, I pulled my car into a parking lot as I drove, at 11:45 pm, and did a trio of ballpoint drawings on a steno pad. I ended up liking one of them quite a bit.


So that's it. I draw on November 27.