Mid sixties - 2004, little or no drawing done, barring the odd doodle in meetings. It was shortly after map of a robery that both peer pressure and the comments of my elders led me to swallow whole the idea that drawing meant having access to a "correct" internal template for any given object which the skilled - which I was manifestly not - could then roll out on paper. The idea of looking out at the world was never encouraged. It didn't occur to me for a long time that looking and attempting to set out what one actually saw might be key and furthermore that one's own attempt, the meeting between subjectivity, a "skill" in flux or development and a willingness to face failure, that is, the performative part of it all, might be in and of itself worth something. This despite a lifetime of gallery going, which began in my early adolescence. On consideration it does explain for a long time why in drawings and paintings I was exclusively haunted or moved by subject matter and almost blind to facture. I suspect this is a relatively common condition.