Now, however, I had made the bold step. I had already made my qualifying drawing for Andy Glynn, and he had as much as invited me to enroll in the Andy Glynn School of Art. Perhaps it was the notion that I’d already been accepted that made me want to attend. For whatever reason, I wanted Andy to teach me to paint. Earlier that morning, when the urge had awakened me and I had recognized it for what it was, I had lain there in bed annoyed by the time that stood between me and my first lesson. (Excuse me while I chuckle, for I’ve often felt the same since. That impatience is one of the traits of my childhood self that survives in the adult: an idea comes to me in the night, an idea intriguing enough to wake me when I know that I need a real night’s sleep, undisturbed, and I lie there, thinking, wishing that the night would end or wishing that the thought would leave me, go away for a while now and let me get my rest, come back some other time, in the morning, or on another day, when I’m in a position to use it. It never does. Ideas can’t be willed away.)
Anyway, I wanted to learn to paint, and since I had only one model for what it meant to paint, I wanted to learn to paint exactly as Andy did. After all, I had some experience with rollers. Why not put it to use?
Andy walked into the kitchen and took a roll from the platter. “Mr. Glynn,” I said. “Hello.”
“Peter,” he said. “Hello.” He tore the roll in half without any apparent regard for its significance as an emblem of hope.
“Here I am,” I said.
He looked at me, stepped back a bit, tilted his head downward and regarded me, threw his head back and regarded me, tilted his head to one side and regarded me, and said, “No doubt about it.”
“I’m ready,” I said.
“For what?” he asked.
“For you to take me on—you know, as a student.”
“You make it sound like wrestling.”
“Heh-heh—”
“Of course, with many of my students, it is something like wrestling.”
“I just meant ‘take me on,’ add me to the list, make me one of your students.”
“I don’t think that’s within my power, but—just out of curiosity—which one did you want to become?”
Rosetta frowned comically and said, “Andrew,” without adding, “stop teasing him—he’s only a kid.”
“Well,” I said, “I guess I meant that I would like to have you teach me to paint.”
“Teach you to paint?”
“Yes, sir. You said maybe you could.” My voice dropped. I had no arguments in my favor, nothing beyond the clam I’d painted. “Yesterday,” I reminded him.
“Sure,” said Andy, as if it were nothing. “I’ll teach you.” He reached toward me to put a fatherly hand on my shoulder. I cringed. I tried not to, but I’m afraid that I did, only slightly, but still I cringed.
“Don’t let me frighten you, Peter,” he said.
“No, sir,” I said.
“Call me Andy.”
“Okay.”
“So you want to learn to paint?”
“Yes, sir—Andy,” I said. “I want to learn to paint like you.”
“Really? How do I paint?”
“Well—I don’t actually know, you know, but my neighbor, Mrs. Jerrold, says you make big swoops and whooshes with the paint.”
“That’s pretty accurate,” he said.
“So that’s what I want to learn—you know, abstraction.”
“Abstraction,” he said. “We’ll have to have a talk about that. Come on.”
[to be continued]
Have you missed an episode or two or several?
You can begin reading at the beginning or you can catch up by visiting the archive or consulting the index to the Topical Guide. The Substack serialization of Little Follies begins here; Herb ’n’ Lorna begins here; Reservations Recommended begins here; Where Do You Stop? begins here; What a Piece of Work I Am begins here; At Home with the Glynns begins here.
You can listen to the episodes on the Personal History podcast. Begin at the beginning or scroll through the episodes to find what you’ve missed. The Substack podcast reading of Little Follies begins here; Herb ’n’ Lorna begins here; Reservations Recommended begins here; Where Do You Stop? begins here; What a Piece of Work I Am begins here; At Home with the Glynns begins here.
You can listen to “My Mother Takes a Tumble” and “Do Clams Bite?” complete and uninterrupted as audiobooks through YouTube.
You can ensure that you never miss a future issue by getting a free subscription. (You can help support the work by choosing a paid subscription instead.)
At Apple Books you can download free eBooks of Little Follies, Herb ’n’ Lorna, Reservations Recommended, and Where Do You Stop? and What a Piece of Work I Am.
You’ll find overviews of the entire work in An Introduction to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy (a pdf document), The Origin Story (here on substack), Between the Lines (a video, here on Substack), and at Encyclopedia.com.
Share this post