Drawing, Nude Combing her Hair and Petting the Cat

This nude figure is sitting on the bed, combing her hair and petting the cat with her foot. You may want to ask me why I decided to put an electric plug and a wire in my drawing. Was I because I wanted it to symbolize the power and life of the figure? No. Was it because I got my figure too far over to the right, and I needed something to balance the composition? No. It was because I wanted to be absolutely sure that in the future no one would attempt to pass my drawing off as an old master drawing done in the Renaissance. That is why I put the plug in the drawing. To make sure that it is a “modern” drawing.

This concern with being modern for me goes back to my student days when I was in art school. I had several old master drawings up on my wall and my mother, coming to visit, started looking at a Leonardo drawing and asked me, “When did you do this one, Dicky?” This question I dismissed at the time as coming from someone who knew nothing of art history. But it was impossible to dismiss it completely. My work was anachronistic. And it is still a factor in my drawing. Does my figure’s right arm look suspiciously like the right arm of Michelangelo’s Libyan Sibyl? Sticking in a Tide box is not going to solve this problem.