the last book I ever read (Listening to Stone: The Art and Life of Isamu Noguchi by Hayden Herrera, excerpt five)

from Listening to Stone: The Art and Life of Isamu Noguchi by Hayden Herrera:

For Isamu, life as a medical student was miserable. He was “totally isolated, no friends . . . Attending class, that’s all . . . And hating it.” The only professor he remembered well was Raymond Weaver, who taught a course on Dante. “He gave me a passing grade no matter what I did. He thought I deserved it.” When Isamu asked Hideo for advice, the doctor said it would be better, and more honest, for him to become an artist like his father. “He himself was an amateur painter—painted fish on his vacations—and he was very enthusiastic about my becoming a sculptor and really tried to promote it. In fact, he tried to get me to do a head of him; he offered me three hundred dollars. But I thought there wasn’t enough dignity in his head.”