Where we left off:
At one point Tammy, the blond painter's assistant, found me and asked, "Did you grow up in this house?"
"Yes, since I was 11."
"I found a couple of things pushed in the back of the closet shelves."
Well, some of you know my Dad was a Porn Hoarder. I hinted here that we found Porn nests after he died. I really thought we'd found all the porn he'd secreted away.
Deep breath. "Is it porn?" I asked.
Tammy was silent.
Perhaps she can't identify porn, I thought.
"Is it a magazine?"
She was silent.
Then she said, "I put it back on the edge of the closet shelf where I was painting before."
She'd been in MY old room. Dad hid porn in my old room? Ew.
She summoned up the strength to say, "It's a sketch."
Relief. I got the rolled up sketch down from the shelf and unrolled it ... this far.
A hairy male knee. Not porn! "Oh! This is something from Figure Drawing. In college. Ohhhh noooo..."
I unrolled as far as the balls.
Yep. Pure virtuous Christian Tammy had seen balls. And a stylized, scribbly penis.
Then I started wadding it up, and talking, and talking faster and wadding faster.
"Oh, yeah, I was in this Figure Drawing class. I remember this nude model. (wad. crunch.) He was so stoned one day he fell off his stool. (wad! wad! wad!) Figure drawing class was interesting I have no idea why anyone would have kept this sketch it isn't very good."
(Only, I KNOW why my parents would have kept it: the nude model looks uncomfortably like my Dad.
)
I made a big production of throwing it in the trash can. Then I apologized, said I'd let them get back to work, ha ha, and ran to the back den to hide while I waited for the no-show electrician. Still, before I gave up and left, I rescued the sketch from the trash. I had to explain to the painters that I thought my husband would get a laugh out of it. (What Gary said was, "GOD that's your DAD.")
Thank God, the virtuous blond Christian Tammy laughed and agreed he might find it funny, and I felt less uncomfortable. Until I drove back to the work lot and found the strength to fully unwad the sketch.
That girl on the right? That's Tammy. Of course, it's not present day Tammy, it's the Tammy Doppleganger who was evidently in my figure drawing class in 1981. (See: the feathered bangs.) She looks a little skeeved out, doesn't she? Nice Christian girl (See: cross) with a satyr / Dad leering at her over her shoulder.
And of COURSE I can't apologize to present-day Tammy for having drawn her in a pervy tableau thirty years ago, before she was born. But I WILL. If I ever see her again. Because I can not just shut up.
I am sure that after seeing this image of her and satyr / Dad / Satan that Tammy is so skeeved out she will never have sex. Who knows, perhaps the Hand of God led me to draw this just so Tammy WOULD find it and never have sex.
God works in mysterious ways.
You drew the uncomfortable person in your class as well as the naked model. You crack me up.
But Ellen - you should just shut up about it. Poor Tammy. I can't claim to understand her, but I still feel the pity for the girl who saw herself in that sketch.
Posted by: Tami | March 03, 2011 at 07:30 AM
Tami - she was from class (since she is clothed), but she had been pulled out to sit with the model. I know this because I recognize the line behind them - those are the model's stool and folding chairs covered with sheets (figure drawing, not background drawing). My teacher was innovative. Naked people were not enough for him. There was always a purpose. Once he put the model in the closet so we had to draw the detail from memory, or else visit him in the closet. I'm guessing he felt people in class weren't trying to draw faces? And the guy was naked already, but he needed someone else?
Posted by: TheQueen | March 03, 2011 at 07:58 AM
EEEWWWW!!!!
OH MAH GEEE
that being said. wow. you do have some talent there. Very good job!
do you still draw?
and I was a nude model for art classes once upon a time.
yeppers!
Posted by: mrs. hall | March 03, 2011 at 10:28 AM
He put the model in the closet so you'd have to VISIT HIM IN THE CLOSET? That's a post right there.
Posted by: magpie | March 03, 2011 at 10:43 AM
Wow. You are talented in so many ways.
Posted by: Hattie | March 03, 2011 at 11:42 AM
"Art is never finished, only abandoned."
Leonardo da Vinci
Posted by: Benchmark | March 03, 2011 at 03:53 PM
Is that a Peter Pan collar on Ellen, er, I mean, Tammy?
Posted by: Hot Mom | March 03, 2011 at 08:52 PM
So I usually read at work; but I had to keep scrolling up and down to keep penis off my screen. Now that I'm in my 40's I don't want to be the creepy old lady at work. Figured I'd wait until I got home to really look at the drawing; and I see the guy was really hairy. And also not circumcised?
Posted by: Amy in StL | March 03, 2011 at 10:44 PM
mrs Hall - I haven't drawn or painted a thing for years, for some reason. I probably peaked, and then lost interest.
Magpie - It's mentioned at the end of this post on my first day in figure drawing class: http://www.mocklog.com/queen_mediocretia/2008/07/art.html
Hattie - No, not really, this is pretty bad.. The knee is good, but the rest is very amateur.
Benchmark - Excellent quote!
Hot Mom - I'm not at all sure. She's blond. She doesn't look at all like me. Maybe she symbolizes me in this vision of the future.
Amy in StL - Not circumsized. That was one of the first things I noticed about him.
Posted by: TheQueen | March 05, 2011 at 12:15 AM
I'm almost speechless with laughter every time I look at this. The sketch alone is enough, but Tammy finding it - priceless.
Posted by: Mare | March 05, 2011 at 07:54 AM
Mare - I think it's the first time in five years I've felt mortified. It doesn't happen often.
Posted by: TheQueen | March 06, 2011 at 12:19 PM