Had someone taught Al Brandwein how to draw when he was a kid, maybe he would have been nominated for a national award sometime before he turned 90.
But then, the Lincolnshire resident had to teach himself just about everything he has ever done. While serving in the Navy, Brandwein said he taught himself how to swim and pilot a ship. He made a living as a salesman because he picked up people skills fast. And about 10 years ago, he picked up some chalk and charcoal and just started drawing.
And when he submitted his work to the North Chicago branch of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for its recent arts festival, he won the blue ribbon. His portrait of Mahatma Gandhi is now on its way to Jackson, Miss., where it will compete against other drawings in the National Veterans Creative Arts Festival in October.
“It was the first time I ever won anything,” Brandwein said. “It was nice. What’s bad about winning a blue ribbon?”
Using high-end pastel chalk sticks and charcoal, Brandwein draws portraits on his paper canvas, often seated at a small easel atop a table. He has never drawn a live subject, instead searching for photographs of faces that excite him. He has tried landscapes, still life and such, but said recreating a face is the hardest challenge.
“A portrait, it either is your face or it isn’t,” he said. “There’s no cheating.”
He said he found a photograph of the famous leader wrapped in a shawl, looking downcast, and it compelled him. When he heard about the VA’s competition, he submitted three drawings, but felt the Gandhi portrait was the best. The judges felt it was the best of everything they saw.
Brandwein has taught himself a few skills in his years, and found his way to get by every time.
A native of Chicago’s South Side, Brandwein said he graduated from Hyde Park High School in 1943; the next day, the Navy sent him to its training base in Farragut, Idaho. At 5-foot-8 and 127 pounds, the 18-year-old cut a small frame among the other young sailors … and did not bother trying to explain to anyone that he did not know how to swim.
“They never did teach me,” he said.
Brandwein said he passed the diving test by jumping feet-first off a three-story-tall deck and dog-paddling to the side of the pool. A few days later, he got through the swimming test by doing the backstroke — or something on his back, anyway —for the whole 50 meters.
“They didn’t care how,” he said. “You could walk on the bottom for all they cared.”
After boot camp, his first assignment was to shovel the coal that arrived at the base on a train car. He said he hated it. Some time later, the base needed someone who knew how to type. Brandwein lied.
“I raised my hand,” he said. “I’d never typed a letter in my life. I learned how to type with one finger, faster than anyone, because I didn’t want to shovel on the coal car anymore.”
Brandwein left the Navy in 1945 and returned to Chicago. His father, his uncles and even his twin sister, Ruth, all worked in sales; he said his father “knew someone who knew someone who knew someone,” and he got into the office of the partners who owned the Butler Specialty furniture company.
Brandwein said he had never sold anything. Butler hired him as a traveling salesman, gave him a seven-state territory and sent him out on the road.
“The first account I called on had burned down the night before,” he recalled. “I sat in my car and cried my eyes out.”
He worked in sales for 51 years, for five companies, finally retiring at wife Nancy’s behest at age 71.
But retirement was tough for a man who spent his youth on the move. The Brandweins moved to a subdivision in Huntley; Al built a patio for their house, and frequented the activity rooms in the community club. Sewing was not his speed, but he saw some folks drawing, and gave it a try …
And now, the walls of his office in his new condominium in Lincolnshire are covered with 30-something charcoal-and-pastel-chalk portraits. There is the wrinkled visage of Mother Teresa, and the mustachioed face of Theodore Roosevelt; Brandwein said smooth skin like Ghandi’s is the toughest to draw, because he must make the shades blend instead of using hard lines to provide definition.
Neighbors, and his children and grandchildren, are waiting in line to become his first live subject. Brandwein is not sure — he’s never tried it. But then again, he has become adept at a few things without instruction before.
“I wish someone would have led me in the right direction, but it never happened.”
Twitter @RonnieAtPioneer
