Origins

Caitlin and I met at the bar where her husband Rod works and talked about drawing, which we've been talking about for years. Caitlin, a costume designer, was currently without a project, and I had just been let go from the exhibit design firm where I had worked for 4 years (my gears had not been meshing with the boss). Caitlin said she had recently decided that she liked animals more than humans, and that was just that (her husband was accepting of this reality).

We should use all our free time to draw, we agreed, and we should draw animals. I had always thought that since I lived in New York City I should draw at the American Museum of Natural History, but in 22 years of living here I had never actually just taken a day to do so. So we hashed out the plan to start a drawing group on the spot, and I believe we came up with the name of our group there and then.

For the first session we invited some friends, both costume designers, who we thought would dive into this with the same fervor, Chris and Caitlin. We did not, I promise, set out to have two Chrises (for I am named Chris) and two Caitlins - this symmetry arose naturally.

The first drawing session began with the comic scene of me arriving at the museum ten minutes late (this has become typical) and walking from floor to floor and room to room talking to Chris on my cell phone, trying to find the Asian camel she insisted she was standing right next to. That I couldn't find any camel of any description with her next to it was not surprising, for Chris had mistakenly gone to the Metropolitan Museum, on the other side of Central Park.

When Caitlin 1 arrived, we set off to draw without Chris, who decided to stay at the Met and draw said camel, a Chinese sculpture. Caitlin and I found a nice bench, suitably quiet we thought, on the Advanced Mammals gallery on the 4th floor, with a good view of the immense skeleton of a prehistoric Gaur (an immense ox). We had the first of many moments when a child came over, watched us, and then yelled as loud as he could to his parent on the other side of the gallery, "Mom! Look, they're drawing!" (We have also become used to kids screaming to their parents, "Mom! Look at these horns!")

We have come to enjoy the sound of discovery and awe as children in large groups flood into a gallery, which can be louder than a Metallica concert.

Distractions aside, Day 1 was exhilarating, a morning filled exactly as it should be. As if I had gone to the gym or done yoga or completed the Times crossword puzzle in one sitting in pen, I felt noble and accomplished the whole rest of the day.