Earliest art memories started with dad… November 9, 2008

I remember sitting down with dad in the living room of the apartment on Bembridge. While sitting on the comfy maroon couch, he would take one of the blank pieces of paper and whatever drawing utensil I was using, and become very focused and say, “I am going to draw something, and then you guess what it is.” Like every drawing he did before, he’d slowly sketch out the profile of a person.  With a pointy, slightly upturned nose, you wouldn’t know if it was a girl or boy until he got to drawing the hair. Upon completion, he would smile and say, “Oh, see?  It’s finished,” and declare the sex of the drawing, like he had just delivered a baby.  I remember these drawing sessions vividly, and just last week these memories were revisited when I came home to one of these pictures.  Dad had been showing my little cousins how to draw, and in green marker was one of these profiles.  I think it really had been at least ten years since last seeing one of these, and it made me smile.  I wished I would have been there to see the whole event through different eyes - eyes of an outsider who experienced the same small effort to share such a small joy.