John Wingate Weeks Footbridge across the Charles River

This is drawn from Cambridge, Mass. I actually entitled this picture ``Water Nymphs and Satyr'' recalling a not very similar picture by Bougereau which hangs in the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown. This was drawn on a Sunday. On these days the MDC blocks off Memorial Drive and there are many people walking and skating up and down it. It is much more pleasant to draw without all the traffic.

This is #1 in my Charles River Series. This was the first of several pictures I did up and down the Charles. Most of them involve bridges. I later found out that President Clinton was running a campaign where bridges were mentioned a lot. I attribute most of any artistic merit the pictures in this series might have to the charm of the women who populate the banks of the Charles.

One of the people I talked to while doing this was a retired man who liked to do oil paintings on the spot as I was doing. He did historical buildings in Lexington and vicinity. He was on bicycle. A woman walking by with a friend said my drawing was awesome. An auspicious beginning for this series.

Along with providing people with a way to get over the Charles, the foot bridge takes steam pipes from Harvard's main campus over to the business school.

Charles River Series #1

August 25, 1996