Bad Boy

I've just started reading artist Eric Fischl's recently released autobiography (co-authored by Michael Stone), Bad Boy. I expected to find it interesting and maybe a bit revealing, but not personally relatable or instructive because male and female artists typically have very different experiences and because his work - narrative and figurative - is very different from mine.

But I'm finding so much more! Fischl is very articulate about his struggles to find his artistic voice and he writes about his misfires and progress in a very open and forthright manner. In the early pages, he writes about growing up in a difficult family situation, thus laying the framework for what will eventually become his artistic focus. There is so much here for any artist to find thought-provoking.

Here is a tidbit for my talented community college students: Eric Fischl's first exposure to art was as a community college student. He took an art class because he thought it would be easy but, instead, it opened a whole new world to him.

More, later.