Becky's Drawing of Me - 1982

So at some point in 1982 Becky asked me to pose for her. She wanted to draw me. I had never sat for her before. This would have been during the period for her between undergrad studies at Temple University's Tyler School of Art and her grad school MFA program at SUNY Buffalo. I can remember that day sitting at the kitchen table just outside her backroom studio in our apartment on Putnam Street in Buffalo. I had never modeled for anything and I wasn't very good at it. I sat at that table reading a book while she was drawing until it was time to do my eyes and then I had to sit there and stare at the wall.

She took the drawing to the family art supply store on Hertel Avenue where I had just started working and put it in a frame. Later she gave this drawing to my grandmother and it hung in the living room of her home in Chestnut Hill in Philadelphia. When my brother Tom saw it on the wall he asked "who's that guy?". Apparently he didn't recognize me without my glasses.

The drawing stayed in the same place on the wall next to the front door for almost forty years. Mom moved in with Mom-Mom and then stayed there after she passed. Tom moved in with Mom and stayed there after she passed. Dan moved in with Tom and stayed there after he passed. Recently Dan has been renovating the house and the drawing came off the wall and was set aside. 

Last week while we were in Philadelphia for the birth of our granddaughter Violet Dan stopped by Katie's house and dropped off the drawing along with my high school photo that also hung on a wall there along with my siblings school pictures. We took the drawing home and Becky plans to reframe it and do a little restoration work on it too. In the meantime it is sitting in our front hall leaning against the stairway.