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Wednesday, March 02, 2005
CRY UNCLE II – Sibling Rivalry
You might think of sibling rivalry as a fault one leaves behind with childhood, but this is not always the case. It certainly wasn’t with my mother and Uncle Don.
Mother, eight years older, had a head start in gaining the affections of her parents. A good athlete, she began following her father around the golf course at an early age, and when she eventually started playing golf, she did well. She also shared her father’s interest in boats, fishing, and camping trips.
She loved swimming and parties on the beaches of Belvedere and Tiburon with her cousins and friends. She was a healthy, pretty, and popular outdoor girl, her parent’s pride.
Don was not only expected to follow the same pattern but also to provide male companionship for the father, but it became apparent early on that he lacked athletic ability let alone interest.
The parents, I fear, could not conceal their disappointment. Their expectations had been high, too high.
Years later, Don once recalled that once after auditions for a school play, his mother cried because he had failed to get one of the lead roles. Another time when he helped his father stack fire wood, he was told he had done it all wrong and had to watch his father impatiently knock his pile down and restack the wood himself.
Bookish by nature, Don often retreated to his room to spend the day reading. My mother once recalled with no small disdain that when the weekly Saturday Evening Post arrived, Don would disappear until he had read the magazine cover to cover. No one seemed to realize that Don may have been escaping from a competition and failure.
Although brother and sister shared the advantages of affluence and both received good educations, they had few interests in common, yet both were gregarious, had many friends and were great readers. Just the same, they remained rivals.
Early in 1979, few days before she died, my mother said she felt good about everyone her relationships with everyone in the family except Don. I was in close touch with him in those days and assured her that everything was fine and that he sent his love.
His newspaper column the week of her death, however, was so full of clinical details on her uterine cancer, its treatment and probable causes, that it could hardly be classed as an obituary. The details would have horrified my mother. Don, I’m sure, knew that, but he sent copies of his article to me, my two brothers as well as some family friends.
I was angry but hardly surprised.
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You might think of sibling rivalry as a fault one leaves behind with childhood, but this is not always the case. It certainly wasn’t with my mother and Uncle Don.
Mother, eight years older, had a head start in gaining the affections of her parents. A good athlete, she began following her father around the golf course at an early age, and when she eventually started playing golf, she did well. She also shared her father’s interest in boats, fishing, and camping trips.
She loved swimming and parties on the beaches of Belvedere and Tiburon with her cousins and friends. She was a healthy, pretty, and popular outdoor girl, her parent’s pride.
Don was not only expected to follow the same pattern but also to provide male companionship for the father, but it became apparent early on that he lacked athletic ability let alone interest.
The parents, I fear, could not conceal their disappointment. Their expectations had been high, too high.
Years later, Don once recalled that once after auditions for a school play, his mother cried because he had failed to get one of the lead roles. Another time when he helped his father stack fire wood, he was told he had done it all wrong and had to watch his father impatiently knock his pile down and restack the wood himself.
Bookish by nature, Don often retreated to his room to spend the day reading. My mother once recalled with no small disdain that when the weekly Saturday Evening Post arrived, Don would disappear until he had read the magazine cover to cover. No one seemed to realize that Don may have been escaping from a competition and failure.
Although brother and sister shared the advantages of affluence and both received good educations, they had few interests in common, yet both were gregarious, had many friends and were great readers. Just the same, they remained rivals.
Early in 1979, few days before she died, my mother said she felt good about everyone her relationships with everyone in the family except Don. I was in close touch with him in those days and assured her that everything was fine and that he sent his love.
His newspaper column the week of her death, however, was so full of clinical details on her uterine cancer, its treatment and probable causes, that it could hardly be classed as an obituary. The details would have horrified my mother. Don, I’m sure, knew that, but he sent copies of his article to me, my two brothers as well as some family friends.
I was angry but hardly surprised.
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Monday, February 28, 2005
EWES’RE FRIENDLY, a three by four-inch mezzotint is the first print I have ever done with a pun as inspiration. The sheep belong to Sandy and Rick Mallouf of Olema who wanted me to do a sheep painting. So far, this is all I’ve come up with. The image is printed chine colle on paper I soaked in coffee. The absorption rate varied so that some sheets are tinted darker than others, and some are browner along the deckle that in the center. Thus, the edition varies from one print to the next. There will be 25 in the edition with five artists proofs. They are available for $75.00 each.
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