Fortunately, Jules Stein didn’t take enough expensive drawing paper to North Avenue Beach that day, and after a while he ran out. The light was still good, his nylon pens were working fine, the chess players he’d been sketching were still at it, but he had nothing to draw on and there was no art supply store nearby,
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Stein–now a sprightly 73–got his start as a sign painter, then did lettering for Chevrolet in Detroit during the Depression and later for advertising agencies in Chicago. “At 39 and a half I decided I’d like to draw. The art director at one agency said, ‘You may be disappointed, those are different things.’ Of course that just made me more determined. Once I started I was relentless, and just drew and drew and drew.” He says he showed some drawings many years ago at a gallery on Michigan Avenue–“but those weren’t on paper towels.”
“When people come in here the first time,” he chuckles, “I usually drag them in here and have them look at this picture, and ask them, ‘What kind of fabric is that?’ And they’ll always say, ‘I don’t know–canvas?’”
