Ten O'Clock News; Conger Metcalf: A Drawing Lesson

The 10 o'clock news clanger Metcalf Labor Day special likes 29 minutes 10 seconds to do B-H TV Boston. And. Tonight on the 10 o'clock news the uncanny eye and hand of the artist Congar Metcalf. The 10 o'clock news is made possible by your contributions and by grants from Nimrod press printers and engravers. From New England telephone. Thirty thousand people serving New England's communications needs for more than 100 years. And from short the providers of financial services that more than 200 locations across Massachusetts. I'm Christopher Leyden. We are spending this Labor Day evening with a Boston artist of

extraordinary skill and understanding and charm. Congo Metcalf. Drawing is learning to see. As we. Work with the head. Please never let it out of your mind with think skull. Give an obstacle. Don't be trapped by just looking at hair. Think skull first then Ray put the hair on top of that thing. Think it up. Moving across the head from here to here. 7 major movements. Very very dramatic and strong. On the skull. Run 2 3 4 5 6 7 0 Boston get teased for scenes like this

but the persistent notion that high art is a do it yourself movement among the privileged. But at the center of this picture is a master teacher and draftsmen summing up. I remember teaching about this universe or how I was head of class. I would put. The last of this 57 principles involved in the act of drawing. And that's in my mind it's a partial list. You're rocking with your head and your eye. Your heart thinking your mind and the articles are the principles I put up there are nothing new for Laura with light for space line quality perspective. All of them are something that

will tangle with and I will be carried along with. Whatever doze God leaves me this is a Boston artist who was born and raised in Iowa whose painter's vision was really filled up in Italy. He's the child more of the moderns like Picasso and Matisse than of the venerated Bostonians like Sargent and Paxton. It Congo Metcalf has been a Boston school under himself and a best seller here for 50 years now and he has been teaching again this year. Inside the hub of the hub at the Boston Athenaeum. Forum is the bar's forum as the king. And. The Gates. In the athenæum gallery right behind him as he teaches is a retrospective show of condiment cats work over 65 years. It's a flashback on rather a lot of this century. And Picasso's blue period on the cubism of George Brock. And Matisse's drawings. The room is full of nostalgia for those twentieth century masters for the first time just

for its own sake. Most of these paintings looked old when they were new 50 years ago then and ever come to make us work cast a spell of melancholy and loss. Wilted beauty vulnerable humanity amid the ruins of classical civilisation. Where would I. Serve and not to the largest rose I think I would go first. To this place. I've had friends from out of town come to visit. They had tried monster banking. And they find me over here looking at the wrong bank. In 76 years. That I would like to own. Of my ever owning it. My friend made me one of my oldest friends she brought me one yellow rose. When it began to fade I took it out of the

water faded turned. That copper. Color. So round. The frame. Landed near this piece of paper. So I took the friend put it over the piece of paper took Mimi's rose put that on the piece of paper. Rather large. Painting. The frame which kind of got. Going. Piece of paper had foxy little royal hole. The rose was still beautiful. Faded. Garment. And things like liberty equality. Justice. They didn't go we'll go and it is the method as much as the mood that draws us into Congress that cast pictures there paintings many of them without color. Master drawings in effect. Whether with brushwood pencil they're rendered with respectful form and a certain deference to old

ways of framing images. You mention that as one of your guides but I see. Wrong because so in this show. Oh I bought a limo Drunkery Brock Picasso pulling out. I wish I could have been. Well. I wish I could have been God. This is the. This is the. Oh my God he's denied. This mother died about less than a year ago. She posed for a. Blessing going to Bursley. Drove her as a person. Chris about since I was 14 years old my favorite brother I had four brothers. But Malcolm all my favorite were always together. Hand. In hand. And. He was let's see he would be 12 I guess I was 14. I said mother. Now

comes outside playing he won't come in for me. You ask him if he'll pose. He came in. Let me have a little music room with a bay window I put in between the two windows. Not knowing. That it is a difficult lighting for someone who never made an oil painting before in his life. Didn't you rather dazzle you saw for the discovery of. How. Easily it came to you. Know that's. There among us. Because it looks a greenie. Yes Queenie. Clearly has a great story. She means something in my life. She danced with the old Howard. And. Got a very colorful life. Well put it that way. Its coming apart Take the plane.

But then I'm coming apart too. Certainly she was going to better. It's a strong heading and not terribly well drawn but. People are fascinated by this drawing is all cut up but. I wanted to show it as a milestone for me. This is 50 years ago when you were devastating us into the world of. Cars ever. My one great teacher kept talking about ZF. If I understand you can understand a woman's breasts a vase a tree trunk. So I said all right I was a freshman I went back to Iowa for the summer took two I were fresh fruits and put them on the floor over a multi-story and I. Made her the way I thought I was making this wetter and I brought

it back I was just nervous. I wrote about her name anymore. This is just. The most recent. I think. Yes it is and that is a little video of my two room apartment the front row. Next entering Congo becomes apartment feels like stepping into his portfolio stepping out of this century out of this world. The living room has the marks of the Metcalf. The still lifes the objects the washed colors of his work. Will you show us around. This is amazing run to. This room as. I've lived here 28 years. And just come and gone and I know times. That well for example it was made during the time of Marie Antoinette. And she played from a little basket with rake and horror there.

Anywhere I've lived I've never had my own painting. I want to sit here and relax. If I saw my paintings every night I'd want to take them out of the frames every five minutes. There's very little of Iowa in the room save for a photograph of the two inseparable Metcalf brothers were always together. Look at those afros. There are some farm animals around the place like this ceramic rabbit at rest inside an 18th century crash on a table picked up in Florence was a pup. Oh and here is my pet. His name is Ralph Ralph. It's beautiful. You know it strikes me is that you mean in your own world. In this room as you make your own world in your paintings.

That's Romans had a lot to do with my painting the colors. Textures. If it's my spare. Time knows I'm fine. There were about eight. I brought them home. It just fitted beautifully that. You know this this room. This room makes me ask the same question I asked about your paintings which is sort of. Where I weigh. I'm not sure this is. We're a bit out of time and space in this room. I'm grateful I prefer that I wasn't born in the 18th century. I'm an 18th century man. I'm glad we have modern dentists and doctors. But you know.

You were flying 18. I think so I know the best I was stationed there during the war. Well go to one for nine months. And the Germans have just left so we were we couldn't go forward they were in Berlin you are PI and we couldn't. Go forwards. So Uncle Sam was very good. Nine months in Florence is from I learned but little of the language I know and I started finding these things. And I knew these for the. That covers everything I wanted to paint. I'll never. Go back every year. I never saw anything that I wanted to paint left at all. Crime would my friend. Grant would of American Gothic fame observed as he said the most amazing technical facility in Cancun at Katz that was 1935. Grant Wood was a teacher but not an influence in the odd way of inspiration.

Metcalf owes more to the Renaissance anatomist this alias. The Senate is one that has influenced me a great deal. I'm fascinated by his one of the first people to cut up the corpse. He'd go to the town police and beg for bodies. And take them home and go through the style various layers of flavor. And. He was a superb drives fan. And I had. Not often I got a fresh idea new idea. One day I was studying him at my desk. And I looked at. The head. A convict his head sliced open. And showing the order the non chaos Gods order. And I happen to have a half of a round up. Right by the book. I looked at them both the same. Same. Thing. I got excited ran out to the kitchen I found a Brussels sprout.

Broccoli. And started putting them all together. And. Then I gave it a biblical title. Run. One of the first I did. Something found in numbers. Where the. Man says for we are fearfully and wonderfully made. And I did others. A very exciting time for me. Sure some of these things coming are. Very fond of the. New reading here. No. Shame to treat the books that way. Chinese don't know if she's Spanish ivory feet ivory hands. What is this. This looks like a child's robe. That was made for a child not of Dao. Real. Gold. Braid. He's When I bought

them they were black and gold. Something told me that there must be a green underneath. How would you describe the color of this room which is something like the colors in your paintings. I much. Like the colors and I think things soft green the apricots colors. Share my soul feed my spirit. Or when I bought these panels for dinner said Don't you want them regulated and repainted. Not a drop. I want that soft cover. Would you leave this into your studio. Surely. This is where it happens. It all happens here this quiet tiny little room. This is new work and all that here.

But of this I did then I was about six years old I don't know why. You MC Escher period here. Funny little thing someone found it and if you have a little frame to get it that's the mark of the master. I did very much the same person who discovered that in. Some old trunk. Found that Victorian friend. This is not the kind of Nike. That's a recent one that will be redone. The man can draw you have to admit. Oh. I didn't know. Now I'm trying he has always been my my great interests. I remember being hired at Boston University teach painting and drawing. And after the first semester I went to David Aronson and said please could be just the pencil way. Turned it into a drawing class.

Every time a painting you're drawing so I look at this and I know why. It never ends in that little hollow here is an anatomy is called the snuff box. All kinds of things on the floor here are to be redone. I'm a frustrated musician. I want to be an accomplice. So I get in this music all the time. Earth wind up there with a keyboard or musical instruments. That's a stunning piece of drawing right there. It's a friend of mine a singer a teacher. He's now retired. A wonderful teacher a wonderful singer. So he put on the sheet. That this little I think we could use a little dusting.

This is another version of. A bound from here. Can then Florence. Take us to the Lion's Den here with a man who works. Right here. I started this long time ago. It's another. To be another version of my front room. The results. Are playlist. TAHLIA 18th century America. You know this has to do with you creating your your own world you create your own. Surface here don't you I mean I know I don't like the paper it's a hundred percent right. Sourav is quite a display of the clay is polished and smoother than satin. I

never liked painting on canvas. I discovered that early in life at the museum school I didn't like the push of the canvas when I paint on canvas. I always have it mounted so I can scrub. Carry on doing my things. With this paper. Using it. For 50 years I still find things I can do. And. Working on this now I want to and that means I can bear down on this pencil and. Does what I would be doing. There. I break things all the time. Then fund the drawing is complete. I mix up a bowl of soup. And spread over the whole thing.

And then you have to watch it like you watch just a fly in the oven but it's just right. Take your caps and rags. Finger whatever and I start excavating. And that's a lot of funnels like. Digging for. Possible Fraiser much. More. The color.

Putting it on. Russia. And then. Looking out for the light. To build up a dark on this paper you have to go one town over another. And I'll start with it's a trance parent kind of medium. I can put on a pale apricots wars over that I can put it gray and all the colors come through. Stuff fascinates me what you can. Do. Everybody who knows you work admires you so for your dry skin shit. My main interest was the seeker that. Just what other people mean by your draftsmanship. The total Abella think you drop that has been my greatest interest in the world of art.

I've. Made a quiet resolution. Many years ago that I would love to draw and for many many years of my painting in Boston I used practically no color sepia Gray I didn't want to use color as a crutch. I didn't want to try and disguise drawing. Problems for us with color. I still. AM TRYING TO LEARN HOW TO DRIVE. Again my. Son said years. Indulging in more color. Tubes of paint I bought. 50 years ago that. I haven't been used for the last three years. One of our discovery is. Your friend my friend John because he said to me. That Congo was always so confident. The way he moved that pencil and I wondered if he was quaking inside.

If that and. Yes I quake. But sometimes I hear. Every little dog has his day and sometimes I know I've done. Nothing like this. And. I know. I belong as I know what I have to do. But as I lay the thing out the skeleton the master plan I had. That's when I quake. And ever saw Matisse's work but when I see your hand I think. That must have been what it was like for him to draw those lines to know. Where he could leave something out. Where he had to make a statement. I wish I could have seen him work. Because some lesser rock like. A female. Like that. So quickly. You were right along. Fortunately thanks. Yes. But.

Before you. Start the word. That struck. Me they find willy nilly they put themselves. In their paintings. They paint themselves they make people look like themselves. Do you. Is that. You put a condom MacAfee in your paintings. I think I would. I don't like looking in the mirror in the morning I think that's something I would strive not to try. And you've done some portraits. Yes I've done lots of two three three times. Always has a very good. Rifle. I have my hands out. I have my father. I was good to us all. We don't turn. It off trusting the baby. All we do is ask. And learn trouble we run. So that idea

behind the page. What is the spiritual life. Behind these paintings behind this pain to do you think. Behind this data. Yes. I've turned to God I've given him. Little time. Resources. My small town she gave it to me. I've given my life to him. He's in charge. Often before I paint. And. Help. Guide my time is my newsgroup. Use your day. Yeah. Well. God does. Very great. What does it mean after all. To have been a Boston painter. You're in Boston by now is Charles Street.

I think of myself as an Iowa. Way talk the way I did when I arrived from our 54 years ago. Boston has much some qualities the same feeling as Florence. As for me. Best improper You can almost every place. You know. I just live a beautiful lady who displays are charming qualities rags. I'm very happy happy love. That's a for now or let's all have some coffee cookies. I love you all. Thank you. Congo Metcalf. That's our News I'm Christopher Leyden. Goodnight.

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