And now this personal news item that may be of minor interest to some of the oldtimers that remember Tupper & the golden 70s.I bumped into Mr. Hammer not too long ago. Surely you remember Mr. Hammer? High school art teacher extraordinaire. Dedicated follower of Albers Colour Theory. Also the main character in a 50-page cartoon book I did for the school board back in grade 11. A series of silly drawings poking fun at his enthusiastic over-the-top teaching style. Only a few of those tattered books survive from the 600 they ran off, but every now & then, I'll find one hiding in a closet or an old storage box. A time capsule of my teenage school years.
I was not a good student for the poor man. I didn't participate in any of his assigned projects. Box-looms, sculptures, stitcheries, modulars, rug weaving, batiks. Nope. Didn't light my fire. My only interest was cartooning and I think it drove him nuts trying to convert me over to 'real art'.Until one day (and I remember it clearly) he just suddenly gave up on me, and from that point forward I was allowed absolute freedom to pump out any and all the cartoon scribbling I wanted. If he was trying reverse psychology, it wasn't going to work - I was spending each hour in his classroom pushing a black felt pen across paper. Oddly enough, it was Mr. Hammer himself that spearheaded the idea of collecting all those one-panel cartoons I was doing of him, into a full booklet for distribution to schools across Canada.
I'm not sure if I ever really got around to thanking him at the time for giving me that 'published author' experience, but it was certainly one of the first things I mentioned when we finally crossed paths again recently at the local community center pottery shed. (That; and how I never really bought into the whole Albers Colour Theory from the git go.)
So we had a nice stroll down memory lane. I suppose this could be considered one of those 'closure' moments we all seem to come across now & then during the second half of our lives. Saluting a certain part of the past one final time, and all that rot. I gotta admit, after a while, it began to feel like an old episode of the Twilight Zone; as if what SHOULD have been just a short weekend away from school had somehow twisted itself into more than a 30 year stretch. So, wot the heck; I split. No use hangin around.
5 comments:
Let's see some more of OUR MAN HAMMER! Remember, I helped with the production of the finished product. I helped with the 'boning' process. A good time was had by one and all.
Ah yes, the 'boning process'. The employment of an actual polished bone to further crease the folded pages of a booklet prior to stapling. Thank you sir, your assistance on that project will forever be noted.
Oh well if we are going to take credit for the production process what about me. There were those long rides to Churchill and that constant,incessant, irritating Eric Burdon music. I could easily throw wine all over him and war might at least be good enough to provide the wherewithall to destroy all those albums. Speaking of the boning process I just used it on my nephews homework - a trave brochure of Vancouver. Believe it or not I used a bone from those days that I still retain in my collection despite the passage of so many years and so many miles.
Down Under
Pffft. . . . . If they are taking credit for the production process, then I'll take credit for making the whole project worthwhile!
Yes, it's true. Without the trailblazing stewardship of Mr. Flower Mover, the project would never have reached daylight.
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