Russ Towne's A Grateful Man

I contacted a well-known artist to discuss the possibility of drawing lessons. As a child, I used to draw all the time. It absorbed me completely. At some point, writing replaced drawing and what had once been second nature (drawing) became foreign. But the urge to draw had remained. I missed its simple and primordial pleasures…

When she asked me why I wanted her to teach me drawing, I replied, “Sometimes you just want to sit back and be led.”…The artist peered at me thoughtfully for a moment. Her blue eyes were clear and perfectly lined with kohl. Finally she spoke, with the hint of bemusement. She said the students who came to her were always full of hunger. They were seventeen-year old aspiring artists and eighty-five-year-old retired businessmen. People of mourned, mislaid, or unmined creativity. Their yearning was like the white puff of a dandelion. All she had to was…