Journal Drawing - Robert Courte, Viola

Journal Drawing - Robert Courte, Viola
Ink on paper, size unknown
April 1960, Ann Arbor MI

I started keeping a journal in January of 1957 as an unintended consequence of taking a life-drawing class at the Cleveland Institute of Art.  By the end of the semester, I had come to rely on it as a combination sketchbook, diary, and pocket calendar, so I bought another book just like it and kept on going.

Over time, my journal changed substantially in format, content, drawing materials, and the quality of the drawings themselves, but two principles remained constant from the outset. First, I never deleted, altered, or edited anything; second, I never let anyone read my journal, or even look inside it, so that I wouldn’t need to worry about offending anyone or embarrassing myself.

As with most of my principles, there were occasional lapses. Two or three times I ripped out a page in frustration, and on a few other occasions I sliced out individual drawings, not to destroy them but to include them in exhibitions. Also, in 1959 I allowed one of my students in Ann Arbor, to read through my journal, but that will be saved for a future post.  

 

I continued on, with a few interruptions, for another 13 years.  By the time I stopped, in May of 1970, I had filled an estimated 3,400 pages with an unexpurgated rough draft, in words and pictures, of my life recorded in "real time" as I was living it, during the years that I changed from a 22-year-old graduate student, uncertain of my talent and unsettled in my personal life, into a 35-year-old husband and father, confident of my artistic skills, and settled into a career as a teacher, designer, and editor.

To be continued...

(Ed. note - the subject in this sketch is Robert Courte, a prominent viola player and distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.)

"Emeritus Honors"

excerpted from

Music At Michigan, Volumes 7-12

pg. 77