Pigeon Hill Playground, the swings were the place to watch the counselors. At least till the older boys came and yanked you off the swing. My first summer being allowed to go to the playground was supposed to be my chance to meet friends and to get to know classmates better. It was also a chance to say hi to a girl from my school who I liked, but did not care to talk to me. She was there when one of the neighborhood bullies tipped me over backwards to remove me from the swing. She laughed, and that was it for the playground for a while.
All through grade school I was one of the boys who were known to have cooties. I guess that's why the first time I hired a model I got that feeling that I was about to be pushed off a swing. It was in New York, where I was learning how to be an artist. Tired of doing paintings of my breakfast or of my dinner, I hired my first real model, sight unseen. Kathy was her name. She was six feet, two inches tall. I was so taken by her my ears suddenly needed popping, and I was quite aware of my breathing. I must have told her it would be for a nude when I phoned her, because she was suddenly nude - and I was still on my swing. The only sound for the next three hours was the sound of my conte' stick being drug across my gessoed panel. Dressed, I paid her and showed her to the door, where I got a peck on the cheek. My cooties were gone and I was swinging high for the first time.
The gallery sold that drawing the day it arrived. Fifty-plus years later I'm still on that swing, and still feeling my ears popping. Only now I'm listening to life stories and about mean professors and boyfriends who are disappointments. Still the occasional nude, but now I am tackling Scilla wrapped in white silk and Brianna's worn jeans. Spending the day painting Scilla's hands, and explaining why she is posing nude if all I want are her hands.
Those days at the playground still return as I paint, only now Jane doesn't walk away, instead she tells me about life in Hungary or the homework she has. I listen as I lift my brush to canvas and try to capture a hand talking or an earring peeking from the shadows of silk like hair. My playground is different now.
