For the past three weeks I have made on an average no less than one good drawing a day, really drawings I’m delighted with. I’ve struck a fine stride and moreover a good system for my work here to continue upon. During the day I paint out-of-doors from nature by way of fixing the forms and above all the color of the out-of-doors in my mind. Then after dark I go into a trance for a while with Rockwell subdued into absolute silence. I lie down or sit with closed eyes until I “see” a composition,—then I make a quick note of it or maybe give an hour’s time to perfecting the arrangement on a small scale. Then when that’s done I’m care free. Rockwell and I play cards for half an hour, I get supper, he goes to bed. When he’s naked I get him to pose for me in some needed fantastic position, and make a note of the anatomy in the gesture of my contemplated drawing. Little Rockwell’s tender form is my model perhaps for some huge, hairy ruffian. It’s a great joke how I use him. Generally I have to feel for the bone or tendon that I want to place correctly.
ZARATHUSTRA AND HIS PLAYMATES
Last night I drew laughing to myself. A lion was my subject. I have often envied Blake and some of the old masters their ignorance of certain forms that let them be at times so delightfully, impressively naïve. I’ve thought it matters not a bit how little you know about the living form provided you proceed to draw the thing according to some definite, consistent idea. Don’t conceal your ignorance with a slur, be definite and precise even there. Well, by golly, this lion gave me my chance to be unsophisticated; such a silly, smirking beast as I drew! At last it became somewhat rational and a little dignified, but it still looks like a judge in a great wig. But a lion that lets a naked youth sleep in his paws as this one does may be expected to be a little unbeastly. When I began to write these pages to-night the stars were out. Now it snows or hails on the roof!
Saturday, January twenty-fifth.
It is bitterly cold weather, as cold continuously as I’ve ever experienced. Both yesterday and to-day the wind has been exceptionally violent and the air full of flying snow. Both of Olson’s water barrels—in the house—have frozen solid. One bulged and burst the bottom rolling itself off onto the floor.
Sunday, January twenty-sixth.
A day of hard work with Rockwell in bed for a change. Just a little stomach upset—and he’s all right now. Felled a tree and cut up fifteen feet of it, taking advantage of this glorious day. It was much milder than for days it has been and it still holds so to-night. There’s no wind and that makes ever so much difference in the cabin. Now if it will hold calm and mild for a day we’ll see whether or not Olson is yet ready to return.
Tuesday, January twenty-eighth.
I’m reading “Zarathustra,” “Write with blood, and thou wilt learn that blood is spirit.” So that book was written. Last night I made a drawing of Zarathustra leading the ugliest man by the hand out into the night to behold the round moon and the silver waterfall. What a book to illustrate! The translator of it says that Zarathustra is such a being as Nietzsche would have liked himself to be,—in other words his ideal man. It seems to me that the ideal of a man is the real man. You are that which in your soul you choose to be; your most beautiful and cherished vision is yourself. What are the true, normal conditions of life for any man but just those perfect conditions with which he would ideally surround himself. A man is not a sum of discordant tendencies—but rather a being perfect for one special place; and this is Olson’s creed.