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SKETCHBOOKS A Work in Progress
SELECTIONS OF SKETCHES FROM RSW SKETCHBOOKS Sunday was the favorite day of my week back in the years of my youth. Remember, I was the "Kid on the Street", living with my mother and dad and younger brother, Josh, in an upstairs tenement, going to school at the Center School down the street during the daytime, and working for RSW as lawn keeper and general handy boy after school hours and weekends for 25 cents an hour. Weekdays and Saturdays were ok, but on those days I was under the supervision of the hired man, Fabian Stone. Sundays, I was on my own, the major-domo of the Woodward estate. Chores included watering all the plants, getting in the wood for the big studio fireplace and for the kitchen Glenwood stove, doing little things for Lena, the nurse/house keeper,. and then finishing up the lawn work left over from the week before. I loved Sundays best. But when I reached the age of 16 and got my driver's license I really reached adulthood. Not only was I the major-domo around the place, but I could drive the big Packard Phaeton on the usual Sunday trips. It was Sunday when RSW spent most of his day traveling along the country roads in the Packard, looking for appropriate spots to make a painting or chalk drawing. Lena would make a sandwich lunch and bottle a couple of thermoses of hot coffee. I would get the Packard wiped clean of all its dust and load into the front seat the sketchbooks, crayons, etc., to have things ready to take off by late morning for a trip which would usually last until nearly dark. In the studio top cabinet shown below RSW stored a multitude of "Geodetic Maps." These maps which were made mostly during the Great Depression by a cadre of surveyors, hired under President Roosevelt's WPA to map the entire USA as one means of putting people to work. They mapped out in intricate detail all of the roads and brooks and forests in the country. I do not know if the entire United States ever was completed but at least all of New England was, and copies of most of the east coast were stored in the Southwick studio. They are still there.
With a stack of "Geodetic Maps" in his lap and his sketchbooks between us on the grey leather front seat, we would start off for an afternoon of traveling the back roads of New England. Going along at about 5 miles per hour we went over dirt roads, out into pastures and around lakes and streams, stopping at his wish, at places he wanted to make a preliminary sketch prior to making a future painting or chalk drawing. Following are selections from his sketchbooks some of which later ended up as chalk drawings or oil paintings.
^ Me studying while RSW sketched
While he made his sketches I would spend my time reading, working on College credit correspondence courSES, collecting wild flowers to identify, or trying to learn Esperanto. At that time, I had been convinced by neighbor Warren Gould that this would become the world language of the future. We were usually back home just before dark with at least one new sketch in the sketchbook. Lena would have have some supper waiting. The next morning I would send off my work to the University of California for grading. I loved Sundays. mlp 2009
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