The Cello and The Pencil

I enjoy sketching musicians, partly because I'm in such awe of what they do. This cello student from the Bard Conservatory Orchestra put tremendous skill and feeling into his playing of Dvorak and Schumann.

I'm fascinated by the way musicians collaborate with dead composers to bring centuries-old creations back to life at each performance. Doing so requires a level of skill and depth that we artists can only regard with wonder.

There's really no parallel in art for this act of sympathy with past masters. When we go to art school, we don't make a group practice of copying the Sistine ceiling or the Night Watch. Imagine if Michelangelo or Rembrandt depended on our technical skills as the vehicle for realizing their creative ideas.

As artists we don't have a shared repertoire that we must all master. We simply glance back at the vast sweep of art history, taking sips of inspiration here and there, and then try to find our own way alone.