Wet Mornings & A Day in the Studio

Bright yellow leaves hold tight to my car as a soft rain presses more of them to the light blue hood of my car. Easing onto Rural Street., I check to see if a neighbor is racing up behind me in an effort to make their train for Chicago. Seeing none, I ease off the gas to take in the deep blue clouds before me. Deep cobalt, not grey like most see, until I’m turning on to High Street. Then the colors change to that grey seen when a storm welcomes the work day. The top of one cotton cloud catches the rays of the morning sun, working to cheer up the world. I swing down Mountain Street where I get a nice view of the valley and again I ease off the gas to feast on that rich blue coming to cover my town.

Later, armed with my morning muffin and my Jake's coffee I pull into an open space close to my building. Still soft, I enjoy the tiny droplets on my face as I walk beneath the trees to my studio . A few drops have gathered on the leaves, dropping off them and then washing down my face to my jacket. With a bit more of what is coming, I quickened my pace.

A worker from the building next door races over to help me with my door, another bit of sweetener in my life. The frame I bought from home challenges me at the door that loves to chip away at paintings and frames. Foiled by a helping hand, the door closes behind me. A little sense of victory comes over me as I climb the 22 steps to my studio. When studying with David Leffel in New York there were five such flights to his studio. At the top I pause to again take in the sight of the oncoming storm. At 75, I also need to set the frame and coffee down. Watching the storm and the man from the Paramount setting out cones to reserve parking for those taking in the matinee, I let the blood back in my fingers. Hands ready again, I first take my coffee and my lunch of jell-o and cottage cheese to my studio . Lights on and my jell-o in a safe spot in the fridge, I return to fetching my frame.

Enjoying the muffin and drinking the coffee, I study my painting of Kim. The day before, it had spent the better part of the day in the furnace room, waiting to be returned to the easel. I never let a student or another artist see one of my major paintings in the stages of birth. A comment of any kind could ruin the image in my head.

Kim, early, knocks and lets herself in. Twenty one years she has been posing for me, bringing lunches or cooking dinners for my brother. When my studio was at my house she always made something for us, either for lunch or dinner.

Undressed, she took the pose and picked up the conversation from yesterday. We still had things to talk about even after twenty one years. Kim is the constant student, always hungry for knowledge. Teaching hot yoga and jazzerize keeps her in inspiring form. As I mix colors, Kim relates what her latest professor tried to lay on her. He is a great guy but she wants to know about Arabic she tells me. She might date the guy from the Apple store too, and so the painting progresses. Soon she falls asleep and I stand to get that damn blood moving. I cover her with a blanket and work on the background. Asleep, she curls up and I work more on the background.

Sewing Machines and Taped Ears

Weathered brick, painted by the wind and rain, catches my eyes and I feel the warm hands that built that wall. I am taken back to days long ago when, as a child, mom took me inside those walls and pulled shirts from hangers and held them up to me. Mr. French points out the sale sign as mom thinks, “Can I make one cheaper?” Back on the hanger goes the shirt, mom asks for boys' trousers. Corduroy with buttons, no zipper. Two sizes too big and long, mom has them wrapped up. Classmates will get a good laugh when I go to school with cuffs rolled up and waist pinned back. Safety pins - I hated them. I have a hard enough time in school with my ears tape back.

French's Pants Shop long gone, I pause to look at what remains of the yellow lettering on the weathered bricks. Leaving Mr.French in his little shop, we turn west and turn in two doors down where mom heads straight to the scrap table. Bolts of material line the walls and all colors of thread fill racks. If there isn't enough material in the scraps for a long sleeve shirt, I will be getting a short sleeve shirt made at home. Mom pauses at the new electric Singer sewing machine. She has that same look I get in the dime store in front of the cap guns. I like pumping the foot pedal of her sewing machine and watching the needle go up and down. Spin the drive wheel and watch the thread race across the top spindles then down and around the shiny silver needle's arm. I could never figure out what it did underneath to keep it from coming back out when the needle came back up. Ada, now living over Mr. French's shop, barks at me from her fire escape telling me to get to work.

The sewing store is now the park below my studio window and my studio was once the Fox Theater. I pause before going in and remember those days of riding the bus to town and walking with mom and hoping she would stop at Favorhomes and buy me another toy cowboy. Those cowboys and their horses were all different and interchangeable. I was still playing with them when I was twenty. Only then I set them up in still-life setups. Mom must have used better tape on my left ear, my reflection in the window shows my right ear sticking out more. I pause again at the top of the stairs to look at other memories.

Time to get to work and focus on my painting of Ann's garden.