“I could have been a contender” a great line by Marlon Brando from on the Waterfront. One that likely is a axiom for many whom achieve those numbers in years kicking back  solo and retrospect while sipping on a cup of coffee, titillating  a dusty keyboard with their musings  about a long ago far away past.

  I quit school in the 8th grade and am self educated. Though I do not consider myself to be an intellectual, or a sophisticate with a lofty scholastic pedigree, nor am I boasting certificates of accomplishments that gives me credibility. My life would make a interesting case study of survival and of one rising above circumstances that should of meant 
my demise early in life.  An uneducated man with a thoughtful heart.

   Every since I was a very young man I wanted to be a writer, when I was discharged from the service I actually gave it a shot. Unfortunately the correspondent course I took was discredited, all diplomas were null and voided because the school was in dishonor. I actually had my diploma signed by Bennett Cerf and Rod Serling. Regretfully, I tossed the diploma when I discovered it was worthless, after using up my GI bill to take the correspondence course.  It was a bitter disappointment that wounded me deeply yet I pushed on into plan B, pursuing art instead.

   The late 60's early 70's were really something in regards to my personal recollection of them, I was right in the middle of so much that was happening in the San Francisco Bay area during that time. Yes, I was easily regarded as a hippy back then, dressed out in full regalia, a paisley shirt, loved beads, bell bottom pants, held up by a wide belt, garish belt-buckle and platformed boots. On my head I wore a funky leather top hat with a floppy brim, had a pony tail that went down 

to my belt, unfettered by braids I looked like a nappy headed white boy.My first marriage was pretty much on the rocks. I had involved myself in a big union strike that had gone national. My participation in it had gotten me blacklisted for a time and so my ability to find decent employ was seriously damaged. I also had a heart murmur that kept me from passing physicals.Today what I had is called a mitral valve prolapse and you don't get discriminated against because of it. But I digress, my marriage had come to an end so I took to the streets with my art. I was able to survive because of it and get by drawing portraits of tourists and using drawings of celebrities as a hook. This was back before proprietary law suits came into being and I was able to sell my art in bars and restaurants around the Bay Area. I never had the good fortune to find anyone to back me like some artist so I just got by. Until the early 80's when I met the great love of my life and took her away from the Bay Area to raise a family, leaving the streets, the bars and restaurants I had depended on for livelihood for so many years. We moved to the valley away from all that and I became domesticated and dedicated to raising my son and then my daughter. I was very much involved in the community, the first chair of their cultural Art 
Commission and the door was opened for me to teach art at the county jail. I was hesitant at first, I had never taught and did not know the first thing about it. But it was an opportunity so I put together what I thought would be a good class outline for drawing.It was a huge success and when the program discontinued for lack of funding I was asked to 
teach in public schools through an art program put together by the county. I took it and started teaching kids from k through 12 in public school. This too was a great success and even after the program like the one at the county jail had run out of funds. I had established myself as a competent and much desired teacher.For over a decade my students took 
top honors at juried art shows at two  county fairs and two of my students won first at the state fair. I taught privately until the economy became so dry and technology so accessible it made my kind of teaching  obsolete (no students). I am an old school kind of artist who draws specifically by hand with no technical embellishments just a 2H 
and HB pencil.That is what you see here, I hope you enjoy it. Who knows you might even like it enough to want to have one hanging on your wall. I won't be selling any of my celebrities revealed here but my animals and other originals  will be very much up for grabs in limited edition quality prints if you want to contact me. We Have not got the site 
altogether yet, but hopefully something will be set up soon. Please bear with me and thanks for wading through this intro if you have read this far.

 

Robby the Pencil Minstrel