When I grow up I'll be a painter too

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When I grow up I’ll be a painter too.

A few years ago at a proposal meeting with a gallery, I was asked at what age I knew I wanted to be a painter. I thought about it for a moment and answered, ” Three, I guess. It never occurred to me to be anything else.” The follow-up question was more difficult to answer: “Who were your favorite artists at three?” We laughed because I was stumped.

I had an hour’s drive home and could think of nothing else. When
I was three years old, we moved in with my mother’s parents. My grandfather was in a wheel chair after an accident and my grandmother, a retired teacher, was his primary helper. We moved into their big house so my parents could help with Grampa and Gramma could get my sister off the school in the morning and keep an eye on me. Aunt Mary and Uncle Charlie lived next door with their grandson Bobby, my playmate. For me, it was great fun.

Shortly after we moved in together, my father took Bobby and me to a circus. When we returned, I drew a seal; balancing a ball for my grandmother. She became quite excited and said; “Draw something else.” So I drew the whole circus for her. I still remember the original drawing because she had it framed and hung in the dining room.

From then on, she was determined I should be an artist. She loved the French painters best; she read their biographies to me and showed me their paintings in books. At five I longed to visit Pont-Avon, to see where Gauguin had painted. At seven she arranged for me to spent Saturday mornings in the garage/studio of the high school art teacher.

So, who were the artists I loved best at this early age?

When I got home from my gallery visit, I pulled out boxes of family photos and found pictures of myself between the ages of three and twelve. My hope was that seeing these would help me remembering the artists I loved -- and it worked.

When I visited museums as a child, my parents allowed me a budget to buy the postcards of the paintings I couldn’t live without. When I was twelve, my grandparents were gone, and we had moved to a new house. The walls of my bedroom were papered with these postcards. The photos allowed me to make an approximate chronology of when I discovered my favorites.

Monet
Vuillard
Lautrec
Van Gogh
Gauguin
Picasso
Laurencin
Soutine

As a child, I knew most of these painters only from books. During college, they were slide projections. After college, I tracked many of them down and was often surprised at the actual size. My fascination with Laurencin began when Vanity Fair magazine featured her portraits of little girls with their dogs. ( I was a little girl with a dog. ) Later when I was able to see more of her work, I was surprised to discover how sophisticated her work was.