This is the story of a painting...
...this painting in particular:
The year is 2004. My family has recently moved back to eastern Massachusetts after a stressful year out in Gardner. We're building an addition onto my grandparents' house after moving in with them. A second floor. Which means, of course, it's off with his head, in a house sort of way, obviously. There's a dumpster on the front lawn for the scraps of roof and attic from the demolition, and spare bits of new wood from the construction of the new floor. My grandmother, my brother Tyler and I root through the dumpster one day after the workers leave to try to salvage some choice scraps of wood. What are we going to use them for? No bloody clue, we just like scraps of wood. And climbing into the dumpster is more fun than it should be. I take three pieces. One is painted, looks like a piece of shelving. Another is a longish piece of 2x8, clean and nail-free. The third is a piece of plywood, maybe two and a half feet by one and a half. I bring them in my room and wait.
2007. Late summer. Over the past three years, those three pieces of wood have been shuffled around my room with every new furniture arrangement I dream up. I've tried to find uses for them, thought of all sorts of crazy ideas, but none of them worked out. One day, inspired, I grabbed the plywood and stuck it on my easel and painted the whole thing white. I'd been watching Feasting on Asphalt and something about the twisting arc of the wood grain and texture reminded me of a road. Once the white dried, I started sketching. Water and trees on one side, that's the East Coast; Red-ish rock formations on the other side, the West. I don't usually paint and I'm not very good at it, but over the next few weeks, my tribute to the first season of FoA took shape, and I liked it. By early October, I'd put the finishing touches on it. I took a bunch of pictures of it, which wasn't too easy. One corner always came out blurry.
I wanted to preserve it. I had a plan, you see. I thought, Someday, if I ever get the chance, I'm going to give that painting to Alton Brown, to show him how much Feasting on Asphalt means to me. He never really comes to Massachusetts, but maybe someday I'll... I don't know. I want him to have it. I hung it up on my wall and waited.
October 13, 2009. I'm standing in the cold, windy alley outside the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline, in the standby line. I didn't realize there'd be an event before the booksigning, so we didn't buy tickets. They're sold out and there's at least a hundred people hoping ticket holders won't show, so they'll let us in. Suddenly a cheer starts at the far end of the alley. He's here. I step up onto the cement wall, juggling my heavy, book-laden messenger bag and an awkwardly large grocery bag containing a large painted piece of plywood. There. Yep, that's definitely the back of his head. He ducks into the theatre and we're back to waiting.
Only about ten of us make it in the theatre. When they finally tell the rest of us all the seats are full, we head quickly to the bookstore across the street to line up for the signing. While we wait, the nerves set in. I can't give it to him. I need to get three books signed, and I know from experience I'll have a hard enough time keeping my arms and legs in working order, let alone trying to deal with giving the man an awkward-sized painting I'm not even sure he can accept. My father says he'll give it to him. OK. Good. That's good. I can work with that.
'[She] made this for me?'
'If you can accept it, then we'd like you to have it--'
'Yes! Thank you!'
He has my painting. My painting, he has it. He owns it. It's his painting now. A blank section of my wall has never looked so good.
(Photos courtesy CJP, who is still young enough and small enough to have managed to snag these shots.)
The year is 2004. My family has recently moved back to eastern Massachusetts after a stressful year out in Gardner. We're building an addition onto my grandparents' house after moving in with them. A second floor. Which means, of course, it's off with his head, in a house sort of way, obviously. There's a dumpster on the front lawn for the scraps of roof and attic from the demolition, and spare bits of new wood from the construction of the new floor. My grandmother, my brother Tyler and I root through the dumpster one day after the workers leave to try to salvage some choice scraps of wood. What are we going to use them for? No bloody clue, we just like scraps of wood. And climbing into the dumpster is more fun than it should be. I take three pieces. One is painted, looks like a piece of shelving. Another is a longish piece of 2x8, clean and nail-free. The third is a piece of plywood, maybe two and a half feet by one and a half. I bring them in my room and wait.
2007. Late summer. Over the past three years, those three pieces of wood have been shuffled around my room with every new furniture arrangement I dream up. I've tried to find uses for them, thought of all sorts of crazy ideas, but none of them worked out. One day, inspired, I grabbed the plywood and stuck it on my easel and painted the whole thing white. I'd been watching Feasting on Asphalt and something about the twisting arc of the wood grain and texture reminded me of a road. Once the white dried, I started sketching. Water and trees on one side, that's the East Coast; Red-ish rock formations on the other side, the West. I don't usually paint and I'm not very good at it, but over the next few weeks, my tribute to the first season of FoA took shape, and I liked it. By early October, I'd put the finishing touches on it. I took a bunch of pictures of it, which wasn't too easy. One corner always came out blurry.
I wanted to preserve it. I had a plan, you see. I thought, Someday, if I ever get the chance, I'm going to give that painting to Alton Brown, to show him how much Feasting on Asphalt means to me. He never really comes to Massachusetts, but maybe someday I'll... I don't know. I want him to have it. I hung it up on my wall and waited.
October 13, 2009. I'm standing in the cold, windy alley outside the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline, in the standby line. I didn't realize there'd be an event before the booksigning, so we didn't buy tickets. They're sold out and there's at least a hundred people hoping ticket holders won't show, so they'll let us in. Suddenly a cheer starts at the far end of the alley. He's here. I step up onto the cement wall, juggling my heavy, book-laden messenger bag and an awkwardly large grocery bag containing a large painted piece of plywood. There. Yep, that's definitely the back of his head. He ducks into the theatre and we're back to waiting.
Only about ten of us make it in the theatre. When they finally tell the rest of us all the seats are full, we head quickly to the bookstore across the street to line up for the signing. While we wait, the nerves set in. I can't give it to him. I need to get three books signed, and I know from experience I'll have a hard enough time keeping my arms and legs in working order, let alone trying to deal with giving the man an awkward-sized painting I'm not even sure he can accept. My father says he'll give it to him. OK. Good. That's good. I can work with that.
'[She] made this for me?'
'If you can accept it, then we'd like you to have it--'
'Yes! Thank you!'
He has my painting. My painting, he has it. He owns it. It's his painting now. A blank section of my wall has never looked so good.
(Photos courtesy CJP, who is still young enough and small enough to have managed to snag these shots.)