Wednesday, April 8, 1998
Colored-pencil artist finds life imitating his versatile art
ART: Unique sketches to be displayed at UCLA’s Northern Lights
Cafe
By Nerissa Pacio
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
If there exists a Polar Bear Club, a national New Zealand sheep
shearing contest and a Hair Club for Men, then why not a Colored
Pencil Society of America?
Bob Sage, a self-taught artist whose still-life drawings are on
display until Friday in UCLA’s Northern Lights cafe, proudly
asserts his membership in this highly specialized club. He became a
member not to solicit freebies from Crayola but to join fellow
artists of his medium in celebrating, showing, studying and getting
advice on their work.
"(Colored pencils) just seemed like a natural progression," says
Sage, after having worked in construction and woodworking for many
years. "I can stop and start without affecting the picture, whereas
with watercolor or oil or some other medium, you stop in the middle
of it and you can’t come back."
Colored pencil art might even lend itself as a metaphor for
Sage’s personal life. This very pattern of stopping and coming back
again with fluidity seems to be Sage’s lifestyle trend. He just
picked up where he left off with his high school sweetheart, Debbie
Doolittle. As the UCLA medical art facilities curator who helped
bring Sage’s work to the campus, Doolittle reunited with Sage for
the first time at their 30-year Fullerton high school reunion.
Reconnecting through their shared love of art, they eventually
married just two months ago.
"He said, ‘I asked you 30 years ago to marry me and the offer
still stands,’" Doolittle reminisces with a grin.
The simple subjects Sage chooses, as well as his drawing
process, also reflect his relaxed philosophy of art imitating life
– stopping to observe something, capturing it in a photo or in his
mind, moving on to create art from these images and revisiting
these places or things yet again.
"The more you go back to something, the more you notice it,"
Sage says. "When I photograph and then go back to the object, I see
what’s in the picture in a different light, a different time of
day."
"He sees the effect of time," Doolittle chimes in.
From his graphite pencil sketches of people entitled "Two Guys
Having a Drink" and "Old Salts," to his realistic images drawn from
his own photos of a monarch butterfly, a glass of ice water and a
cup of coffee, antique cars, a desert shack and a golf course
landscape, Sage constantly sees art in the simple places and
objects that he sees.
Ironically, this very simplicity that allows Sage to create out
of his own instinct serves as both an advantage and disadvantage.
While Doolittle’s formal art training, in contrast to Sage’s
self-taught artistic development, stirs interesting debates at the
dinner table, both recognize that professional art schooling
separates their artistic modes of thought.
"I’m rather jealous of (self-taught artistic learning) because
you’re so influenced by one teacher or the art world, what you see
in shows. But he (Sage) doesn’t have that influence. He is doing
exactly what he wants to do," Doolittle says. "He has a freedom
that I chose to let go of, that freedom to search your own
soul.
"But I have feelings reverse of what Debbie has," Sage
interrupts. "Because I didn’t go to school, I have to learn
everything the hard way. I have to learn about the history of art,
art movements all on my own. We have good-natured debates about
different periods, and sometimes I don’t have a clue about all this
stuff. I only do what I like. I appreciate what I see. While I
don’t understand a lot of the thought that might go into some
works, my work is ‘what you see is what it is.’"
Still, while Doolittle reflects that her husband might see and
draw the trunk of the sycamore tree that stands just outside the
cafe’s entrance just as it is, while she automatically draws the
trunk’s pattern parallel to an abstract painting, both do end up
agreeing on one thing.
"This is the perfect place for his art, for artwork to be
displayed," Doolittle says. "I’d much rather have my art show in a
cafe or restaurant where people can relax and observe, than in a
gallery where you have to stand and stare."
With the sunlight beaming through the glass ceiling windows
falling at a perfect angle to illuminate Sage’s work, both artists
nod their heads in satisfaction.
ART: Sage’s graphite and colored pencil drawings will be
displayed in UCLA’s Northern Lights Cafe through Friday, April 10.
For more information call (310) 206-0720.