Chair Man of the Board

This is a post about a board.

I've used the same art board for about 30 years. Instead of one of those nifty tilting drafting tables (which I'd love but have no room for), I rest the board on my lap to draw on. This page from Mom's Cancer shows me and my board in action.

Art boards are made of light, soft wood so you can stick tacks into them. They're meant to take some abuse. Ink, paint, tape and glue are scars that an art board wears proudly. Early on, I smartly decided to use one side of the board for drawing and painting, and the other side for cutting paper with an X-Acto blade. The front stayed smooth while the back got scored and sliced. That worked fine for a long time, until the cutting side became so lumpy and choppy I couldn't even cut a straight line on it anymore.

So yesterday I cemented a cutting mat to the back. I inherited the green plastic mat from my Mom, who used it for sewing, and I hadn't done much with it since. Time to put it to work.

Since the cutting mat was larger than the board, I had to trim it to size. Turns out that's really tough to do! I mean, I realize the entire point of a cutting mat is that it's hard to cut, but I hacked at this thing with a utility knife for an hour and hardly dented it! If anybody ever pulls a gun on me I'm grabbing this mat, because I'm pretty sure it could stop a bullet. I ended up cutting it with a jigsaw.

I expect this board upgrade to be good for another 30 years.

Artists aren't supposed to fetishize their tools--imbue them with so much power that they're afraid to change them or even use them at all. I had an art teacher in college who took a pair of scissors to a new, expensive brush just to make the point that the tools exist to serve you, not vice versa.

But man, this board and I have some history. Although it came from an art supply store rather than the Lady of the Lake, it nonetheless feels a bit like my Excalibur. An artist's board is personal.

I've had the privilege of sitting at the drawing board of Charles Schulz--not the board that's exhibited at his museum, but a second board he used at home. I hardly have a mystical bone in my body, but it's impossible (impossible!) to sit at that board and not feel the creative mojo emanating from it. You can see the ghosts of art and letters carved into the soft wood as Schulz's nibs bore down through his paper.

I mean that literally--you can read words Schulz wrote.

Several years ago, Karen and I went to the estate sale of a watercolorist and printmaker who lived in our neighborhood. I never met her before she died, but when I saw her drawing boards tossed into the garage as "scrap lumber," I knew I owed it to her to save them. I paid a couple of bucks and took them home, and use them from time to time even though they're warped. My nod to her.

I fetishize a little.