The Pharmacist

My parents did not want me to become an artist!


They wanted me to be a pharmacist. Now I know that sounds weird, but my uncle was a pharmacist, and in those days the pharmacist sort of replaced the local doctor dispensing usable medical advice. And in my parents world, this was a way to combine a profession with a business, and you could end up having your own store and being a pillar of society.

If not, I could work at the supermarket. My father knew the supermarket paid pretty well, did not require any specialized education and was secure, at that time. My mother especially wanted me to go to college and get a degree, because she knew this would be important in the longer run.

I wanted to be an interior designer. I didn’t know much about interior design, but I liked the idea. It seemed like something I would like and could do. My father liked the idea because at its root I would be a furniture salesman, and he understood that quite well. He was willing to allow me to go to art school because that sort of worked for him.

That year I met some interior designers and they were gay! In those days we did not call them gay, that is too gentle for the times, but I figured that if you were one of those you needed to be gay and I wasn’t and I wasn’t going to become one, no way! So I told my parents I was going to be a commercial artist. Now days we would call them graphic designers, but not so in those times. My father liked that one, it was commercial and you could get a job.

We all started at the same place in our first, foundation year. All art students had the same base year, and we made our decision for the major at the end of the year. When I made my decision that in the second year I would be a painting major, my father ran off looking for the phone book trying to find the number for the supermarket!

Thankfully, my mother prevailed, and even though she couldn’t ever really figure out what I was going to do to make a living until many years later, she was smart enough and persistent enough to convince my father to let me continue.

Now, more than 50 year later, I have only not been directly connected in some way to an art school for a brief year or two. I may be the poster boy for an art education!