It’s been a while, but do you remember how resourceful I tried to be as a broke teenager? You remember how I wanted to paint like Bob Ross, but didn’t have any money for supplies? How I could only afford two colors, so I chose black and white? I did a lot of those paintings. Black, white and shades of grey.
In fact, your sister has one. It’s of me in shorts and a tank top with one large, door-knocker earring in my left ear. My hair is braided into a ponytail and I’m sitting on the steps of our porch at our house on Almond Drive. I’m smiling with bare feet. The painting used to hang on a wall when she had her house. I don’t remember seeing it in her apartment. I’m assuming it’s still there.
One of those black and white paintings, the one titled, “Puzzle,” isn’t on canvas though. It looks like it’s on butcher paper, but I’m pretty sure I remember painting it on a piece of paper bag. I wouldn’t have had money for butcher paper. I remember trimming the edges so that no one could tell it was a grocery bag. I was proud darn proud of myself then.
(The full essay titled, “Puzzle” was originally published in the Wilderness House Literary Review, Vol. 14 Number 4).
December 6, 2020
The Whole Art Nebula 