Thoughts on Art and Artists Joe Grant died at his drawing board just shy of his 97 birthday. I have been thinking about that fact since I first read about it. If an artist has got to go, and face it we all do sometime, dyeing at the drawing board is the way we would choose.

It speaks to the relationship between the artist and their work. It is not just a job something we do for money. Which may be why artists tend to live long lives. There are much better ways to get money that the path of art. We that follow this path do so because it is the only thing that makes us happy.

The good artist are all about the process, the act of creation. Joe Grant was, without a doubt, one of the great artist of his time.

I am reminded of the story that comic book artist, Tex Blaisdell, use to tell about the death of his friend and colleague Rube Goldberg. Rube died the slow painful death of cancer. On his last night on earth he was setting at his drawing board penciling a page.

Mrs. Goldberg wanted him to go to bed You`re not going to live to finish that page! She didn`t get it. It is not about the finished product, or even finishing the page, it is about the process. Rube wanted to die the way he lived.

Rube told his wife, Tex can finish this page. (Tex Blaisdell was famous for being able to copy anybody`s style) Mrs. Goldberg told this to Tex at Rube`s funeral but she never asked Tex to ink that page so maybe she did understand that it wasn`t about the finished product, it was about the love of drawing even in the face of death.

I am saddened by the passing of Joe Grant but he went the way every artist wants to go, at the drawing board doing what he loved to do. I guess what really saddens me is that he has put his direct mark on his last film.  ¶ 8:28 PM