In a recent comment left on my LJ page, art goddess Rebecca r_dart Dart recounted how, as a kid, she would be transfixed by a Basil Wolverton sticker on her brother’s bedroom door, losing herself in all the inky detail. This got me thinking about early influences and how some images resonate deeply with one at a very young age, in some cases inspiring imitation or homage. Such was the case with this piece of World War II propaganda that I saw at a flea market when I was about 11 years old. A vendor selling military memorabilia had it displayed prominently at his booth, and I was completely transfixed by it. I kept returning to look at it throughout the night, and the next day tried desperately to draw it from memory, eventually giving up in frustration after repeated failed attempts (not much has changed!) I just thought it was the coolest thing ever.
![1942x~This_is_the_Enemy_US_[1]](http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2186/3988727984_7215e71b49_o.jpg)
Later in the same general time period, I came across this drawing (where, I can’t remember). I knew hardly anything of the history of Czarist Russia and the Revolution, but this image really spoke to me, and it’s one I also tried to draw from memory. I’d always been attracted to the morbid and the grotesque, so garlands of skulls were naturally right up my alley.
("The Decoration of the Tauride Palace Continues" by N. Brute, 1906)
Growing up in the pre-internet days (and before VHS tapes were really prevalent, actually), we had to get our porn the old fashioned way: sneaking quick peeks at the magazine rack when the shop owner’s back was turned; raiding the sock drawers of your friends’ fathers; perhaps being lucky enough to stumble across a wilted, water-swollen copy of HUSTLER in the woods. So you can imagine my excitement when I came across this book in a store at the local mall. I was really young when I found this, just entering puberty, but it really had a hypnotic sway over me. As I remember it, the content was your typical soft-core, Vaseline-on-the-lens photographs of two young girls exploring their budding sexuality (and yes, it makes me a little uncomfortable that the girls pictured here appear to be barely pubescent, but so was I at the time, so it’s ok. And hey, the foreword’s by Alain Robbe-Grillet!)
I couldn’t believe that this book existed, out in the open in a normal bookstore, and pored over it every time we took a trip to the mall. Later, I grew bolder and sneakier and managed to read the porno mags at the local pharmacy in greater depth, but I still remember the power that the images of SISTERS had over me.
I hadn’t seen the images above for years until I tracked them down online, and thinking about it, I realize that a lot of their power in my personal life derived precisely from the lack of ready access to them. Now we all enjoy the quick and easy availability of images via the internet, DVDs, etc., but before these things existed, it wasn’t uncommon for something to be seen once and perhaps never again. This was especially the case for kids, who really had limited resources and power. (If you had a favorite movie, you were lucky if it ran on TV once a year, and then it’d better be THE WIZARD OF OZ or PLANET OF THE APES.) Seeing that WWII poster, for example, and not being able to access it again anytime else, sparked an internal mythologization (is that a word?) of the image. The image became distorted or embellished through memory, became infused in a deeper way with one’s self than it would otherwise be. I realize I sound like an old fart, and I’m certainly not romanticizing the pre-internet days; if anything, I’m jealous of kids nowadays. I’m just thinking aloud about our relationship with images, particularly with those that we encounter at a young age, and how this has changed historically. Don’t really know what my point is. But, I started drawing again yesterday after a slump, so I’ll go back to my usual non-chatty, drawing-posting self soon.
