Wednesday, February 07, 2018

Paul Archambeault, RIP

Everyone from Manchester and points nearby from 1980 onward recognises Paul Archambeault's work, pen-and-ink pointillist drawings of historical locations:  Dorr's Pond, The Ledge, Pine Island Park, Ash Street School, Weston Observatory. I can't find any online, likely because of copyright and and artist's need to make a living. I'll see what I can dig up.

I knew him mostly in 1975-76, in my first born-again days - his as well - when he hung around the young men's communal house, affectionately know as the Dix Street Boys. He was just twenty, but took off that summer to draw his way across Pennsylvania, sketching houses, then being invited in for dinner and sometimes a bed when the owners marveled at it and paid him to finish it. It seems a tough way to make a living, but he had a method, knowing how long he had before it was time to move on and start sketching another house.  When he could, he would sketch 2-3 at once.

He moved to Windsor VT and I haven't seen him in 10 years. A gentle soul, forever young.

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