Sunday, October 14, 2012

Drawing at Age Two

Saturday was the retirement party for Mabel Watson Payne's Grandma in the East Bay. Since my daughter and her husband were helping to host the party, I received the congenial task of helping to make sure my granddaughter had a good time (while also simultaneously enabling her to be greeted by many unfamiliar admirers). Toward party's end we happened to find a bucket of markers and a blank piece of gray-toned, rough-textured paper. Mabel determined to make a drawing. She concentrated during a long, quiet interval in choosing and adding colors to this drawing with those markers. She decided at what moment it was finished and she should stop, but then firmly declined to name it. Planetary Pathways is my chosen title for this heartrending piece of graphic work that (with fanatical care) I managed to preserve uncrumpled and bring home safe.