This is not a porn post

Louise, surprised by old terrors.

Acceptance, of a sort.

In 1965 or so, Judy Pugh and I took an oil painting class at the Cambridge Art Center on Brattle Street.

Mostly, we worked on still life projects, but the last painting turned out to be a live, full-bodied model.

Judy and I were little skinny things, and when we saw the model posed through the open door, we had to stand back and giggle, nervously for a full ten minutes.  Neither of us had ever seen a woman of our age so fully fleshed.  Frankly, it was the breasts that sent us into wails of immaturity.  I think we peed our pants.

Anyway, when we calmed ourselves down, we moved into the studio.  If you come late to art class, the easels are all set up in a circle and it's hard to find a place, but lo and behold, there was a clear empty spot for me.  I moved my easel in, and when I looked up, the model's eyes were looking straight at me.

No wonder, no one wanted to stand there.

The drawing is accurate, but I couldn't paint to save my life and skipped over her private parts.  But the teacher, a man, came around and told me I had to deal with it.  So I painted in a dark flat brown triangle between her legs.  A triangle not seen in nature.

The miracle of this painting is that Tom has moved it through about 29 moves.  "Throw it away!" I kept yowling, but NOooooo.

Last night, unbeknownst to me, he brought that damn painting to art class.  He had emailed Judy to make sure she would also be there.  The only good thing to say about my art career is that it has made people laugh from their guts.

Marian, my art teacher, said, "You should have this one in your retrospective."  More laughs.

I'm afraid my family will display it at my funeral.