As a second-year illustration student at the School of Visual Arts, I sat confidently in Jim McMullan's figure drawing class working through yet another series of five minute poses. This would have been my second semester in his class, and I had the notion that I'd picked up a few things. I was blending the High-Focus Drawing ways of thinking with inspiration from Egon Schiele . I recall having the distinct impression that I was making some significant progress. My drawings were pretty different from the character the rest of the class was attempting to achieve. The elegant lines that Jim tried so adamantly to train us to execute were replaced by something resembling the scrawlings of someone crippled with rheumatoid arthritis. After some time, Jim came over to me and sat down. "You're not a genius." He said. This obvious news had been hovering near me for a long, long time just waiting for a willing conduit to deliver it. It was devastating. I think he said a ...
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