Slides 13 and 15

The Slide: My grandfather, sister and mother

The Date: Christmas Eve, 1963

The Photographer: My father

Film is exposed at the speed of light but most of us don’t move that quickly. That’s why we’re so often caught unprepared in photographs. In this slide my mother is somewhere between facial expressions and my big sister who is tenderly cradling our little sister’s doll… well… who knows what going on there? But my grandfather, the subject of the photo, smiles in obvious delight at his Christmas gift. It is a King Size paint-by-number oil set from Craftint. My father raised the camera, focused carefully and snapped the picture.

“Sheesh Dad,” Sally complained. “Thanks for letting me know. That’s gonna look stupid.”

My grandfather turned the box around so I could see. The two panels shown on the front were shown on the back as well though one of them, the one of The Last Supper, was pictured in stunning color. I followed along as he read aloud.

“CRAFTINT KING SIZE DELUXE

PAINT-BY-NUMBER OIL PAINTING OUTFIT

The Ultimate In Paint-By-Number Sets

Each set contains, two huge 18 x 24 genuine artist's panels, 30 numbered jars of oil paint, 3 deluxe artist's brushes, a large bottle of brush cleaner, and complete directions.

It's exciting and challenging for you to paint the 2 beautiful panels in each King Size Set. Remember BOTH of the panels paint-up in FULL COLOR! One is shown in black-and-white merely to withhold the thrill of achieving the actual FULL COLOR results!”

“Wow,” I said. “Let’s do it!”

My grandfather laughed. “No Bobby. I think I’ll work on these myself. This project is going to take some very careful work. You see, this is what you call real art.” And with that he raised the age- old question. What is art?

My mother and father bought the gift knowing he would love it. He had retired from the bottle factory and needed something to keep himself busy. And, where some would suffer from the tedium of filling one paint number at a time for hours on end, my grandfather had just finished forty years on the line putting bottles in boxes one by one, hour after hour, day after day. Tedium would not be a problem. Furthermore he had an artistic bent—or at least a creative one. He loved to build things. He played nearly a dozen instruments including the musical saw. He sang, whistled, whittled and carved. And he’d been hinting about a paint-by-number set. For years he’d seen full-page Life magazine advertisements promising that anyone could be a Rembrandt. Of course it wasn’t quite true. What they meant was, anyone could put paint on a panel - or as Craftint called it a HUGE 18 X 24 genuine artist’s panel –and after a few days or maybe weeks they could have a painting that reminded one of Rembrandt. But, of course, Rembrandt never painted the way these paint-by-number painters did. I wonder though…what if he had? What if Rembrandt or Leonardo or Michelangelo or Picasso had decided to create this way? I’m guessing these guys could have still pulled off some real art?

Craftint did not start the odd revolution. In fact Michelangelo may be guilty of inspiring the whole thing by assigning pre-numbered pieces of his famous chapel ceiling to his students. But Palmer Paints, the first of many paint-by-number companies, launched Craft Master in 1951. In the first two years they sold nearly five million kits created by a staff of twenty-five full time artist/designers. Wide-eyed kittens, Scotty puppies, New England seascapes, Swiss Alps, tropical lagoons, Alaskan glaciers, oriental shrines, Venetian canals, snowy egrets and yes even nudes—all could be painted by anyone able to hold a brush and see. Stores were forced to set up entire paint-by-number departments to handle the rush of sales. In what became a huge publicity ploy, red-faced judges at The San Francisco Art Show awarded third prize to a Craft Master painting. Even President Eisenhower was a paint-by-number enthusiast giving kits to his entire White House Staff for Christmas. Television stars “Ozzie and Harriet” were seen on their show dipping a brush into tiny vials of premixed color and painting away at the kitchen table.

Paint-by-numbers were an American craze. Nearly every home had one hanging somewhere. Art critics were, of course, beside themselves—nearly apoplectic—but they held little sway over America. Certainly no one in my town paid them any attention. We lived in a fairly artless, culturally deprived part of the Appalachians. Did we think paint-by-numbers were tacky? Hey, we’d just spent four months gluing together a ten thousand-piece puzzle of the Taj Mahal. We hung it over the fireplace. We were probably the wrong people to ask that question.

“Okay,” the critics said, “but all this staying in the lines is defeating the artistic process and destroying the creative spirit.”

Well, I wasn’t so sure that was true. After all, staying in the lines was pretty much what we did in the 1950s. And who was to say we couldn’t get a little crazy once in a while--maybe use vial number 9 to paint all the 1s and 4s. I’m not saying I ever got so wild but hey—I could have.

My son Nate is a real painter—an artist and teacher. We often find ourselves grappling about the art world. Judy and I recently returned from a trip to Washington where we visited The National Gallery of Art. It was there, one floor down from a gorgeous exhibit of small French landscapes that we gazed upon a shower stall hanging on the wall. It was an old ceramic shower stall just hanging there—about three feet off the ground, placed at a twenty degree angle. I later told Nate, “I’m not sure how many of my tax dollars were used to create this grand masterpiece but whatever I paid was too much.”

“You have to understand Dad,” he said, “There are two camps. There are the fine art people and then there are the conceptual artists. Most of the time, they don’t have much in common.” He went on to explain that fine art is often quite beautiful… or if not beautiful at least displaying the effort of a skillful artist. Fine art is the kind most of us like to hang in the dining room. On the other hand, conceptual art is not concerned with skill. Conceptual art is all about the idea as in, “Hey I have an idea. I think I’ll write a grant to hang that old shower stall on a wall. I’ll put it about three feet above the ground at, let’s say, a twenty-degree angle. I was thinking ‘bout the National Gallery.”

I know that art appreciation is a matter of personal taste. I’ve seen television ads and heard the announcer screaming, “The Starving Artist Sale at The Holiday Inn! Three days only! Original paintings! All for under $14!” A thirty-second ad is long enough to know why these artists are starving and why some should probably die. But, I gotta say… forced to decide between these works and an askew shower stall hanging in my living room, I’m going with the crappy paintings every time.

Nate just earned his MFA. He spent two years creating paintings using old 50s snapshots as source material. I think he did a great job combining skill and concept. In his own words: “My paintings navigate and comment on the historical space of 1950s America as seen in discarded snapshots and slides. Paint and brush become the tools for possessing a photograph and the memories of people and places. The camera captures a moment of frozen time, but by slowly remaking the photographic image into a painting the viewer is compelled to reconsider what is depicted and to search for its inherent meaning.”

What a great concept. And the viewer is indeed compelled—which, I think, is a characteristic of real art. Real art compels one to ponder, consider, contemplate, feel, act, change and on and on.

So here’s what I’m thinking. Conceptual art is about the idea. That being so, can you think of a more exciting idea than the one Dan Robbins thought? In 1950, Dan was a twenty-six year old artist working as a package designer at Palmer Paints. He had an idea. I can’t say he thought of it as conceptual art. It was probably just a way to make money—but what an idea! He decided to make paintings and then deconstruct them into areas of pure unblended color, each color represented by a number. Then he would mail the numbered drawings to millions of people around the world. Many of these people would never have held a paintbrush in their lives but that was the idea. Dan would convince them that if they followed his simple instructions they could create a work of art. If they believed him, it would result in millions of paintings. What would happen in the art world… no…. what would happen in the world if he could pull this off? Well he did pull it off. And what difference did it make? I can only speak for one man.

During January and February of 1964, nearly everyday after school, I stopped by my grandparent’s to see my grandfather’s progress. Each day I got more excited. And so did he. As I walked in the front door I could see him seated at the dining room table covered with newspapers. He peered through the bottom of his bifocals carefully filling in the spaces.

“I finished all the 26s this afternoon,” he said proudly. “Now I’m thinking it’s time to stop before I go blind. Look it here.” Then he held up the panel so I could see and each day I was more amazed. If I stood far enough away, all the pure colors blended beautifully. “Yes sirree Bobby,” he said. “This is gonna be some real art.”

What did Dan Robbin’s dream mean to my grandfather? I can honestly say that I never saw him happier.

So I wonder...was it real art?

Slides 32,46,65,66 and 9

The Top Slide: The Evangelical Covenant Church

The Photographer: My sister Sally

The Date: Summer 1967

My town had only a couple thousand residents but boasted a dozen churches, though actually I don’t recall a lot of boasting. The churches were all small. The Methodist and Presbyterian were probably the largest but even so I don’t think they could have squeezed more than a hundred-fifty in their pews. Our little building exceeded fire code at a hundred though seldom was that a threat.

Speaking of fire codes, the front doors were the only way in or out of our church—makes me shudder a bit. On the other side of these doors was a small entry area with coat racks and hat shelves. The sanctuary was straight ahead through glossy painted, creaking double- swinging doors. A carpet runner bisected the pews—ten rows on the left, eight on the right. There were fewer on the right due to the heating register in the floor. The upward blast through that metal grate would easily melt an old lady’s nylons were she forced to sit above it on a winter morning.

At the front were two elevated platforms. To the left stood an upright piano and to the right an electric organ. Between them a large wooden pulpit anchored the room. Behind the pulpit sat three chairs. The center one (the one with the arms) was largest and, oddly, never sat upon. When I was seven the pastor’s son told me that no one sat in that chair because that one was for God. This seemed plausible. Even at so young an age, I had a vague conceptual understanding of God’s attributes like omni-presence (meaning always there), omniscience (meaning that he is all knowing) and, of course, omni-powerful. I also understood, purely from personal experience, that God was omni-invisible. So he might very well sit in that chair. Who could tell?

From the beginning of my life I was around the church a lot. My father was the chairman for thirty some years as well as a Sunday school teacher. My mother served as treasurer for most of my life and both parents sang in the choir. From elementary age on, I helped my father mow grass, rake leaves, shovel walks, vacuum carpets, scrape and paint—really whatever needed doing. I was happy to be grown and gone the morning he pulled on hip waders and descended into the church basement to pump out two feet of raw storm sewage. The man was dedicated.

I remember being in the building one Saturday while my mother dusted the pews in preparation for the Sunday service. I wore my hair short in those days, much as I do now, and I liked it to stick up straight in the front. Like many boys, I used a nearly miraculous product called Butch Wax. It came in a blue plastic tube about four inches long. To get the product on your hair you twisted off the cap and then with one finger pushed the wax from the bottom until it oozed out the top. Then you placed the tube onto the front of your hair and slid it upward. Boy, that did it! If you left your hair alone it would not move all day or perhaps ever again.

On this particular Saturday, I horsed around in the sanctuary waiting for my mother to finish. I don’t recall how it happened but somehow my Butch Wax fell inside the top of the upright piano. On tiptoes, hanging by my armpits from the hinged lid, I gazed deep into the guts of the instrument. The tube was gone. My mother had not seen what happened, so I quietly closed the lid and innocently ran my finger up and down the keys to hear if anything sounded at all… well… waxy. Fortunately, everything seemed fine so I was off the hook. Of course, if God was sitting in his center chair, he could hardly have missed what happened but I wasn’t sure it qualified as a sin so I kept it to myself.

It was my secret until well into my twenties though by then I’d long abandoned any guilt. Honestly, I’d nearly forgotten. Judy and I visited my parents one Christmastime and went to the church with my father to help decorate the tree. This involved rolling the piano a few feet to one side. Normally it was a simple procedure but this year one of the piano casters would not roll. Stooping to investigate I was delighted to find my old tube of Butch Wax jammed between the metal wheel and housing. Judging from the wax’s smell and color, it had aged none at all.

In retrospect, I should not have worried that a little wax would harm the music in our church because, honestly, it could not have gotten worse. Like most churches, we sang the great old hymns of the faith. Unlike most churches, we sang them at half speed—maybe slower. Everyone needed three or four breaths just to make it through the first line. When we finally reached the chorus, I could not hold a whole note without growing dizzy and tilting toward my grandmother. Occasionally people just passed out. True, it happened most often in the summer so heat was certainly a factor but it always happened while singing. My mother warned my grandfather not to lock his knees. This was easier said than done. Many hymns had seven or eight verses—maybe more—with a chorus sung between each. That meant my old grandfather stood bent kneed for ten or twelve minutes. He never passed out but often, early in the week, found himself unable to walk.

Sometimes my father and I tried to push the tempo, singing extra loudly, hoping the organist might follow along but she would not do it. Or perhaps could not. Either way it was a tug of war we always lost. Most likely, it was a tug of war she didn’t know was happening. I don’t think she even heard us. Certainly she was unaware of her own hearing aid dueling with several others in the congregation causing the neighbor’s dog to howl mournfully. It was a sad sound coloring even our more joyful dirges. The first time I heard Good Vibrations by the Beach Boys, I remember thinking, “That weird space-aged instrument in the chorus sounds just like Sunday mornings.”

Music was not my only complaint. There were also the pews. It is clear to me now that the pews in my church were not designed to be sat upon. They were hard maple and slippery beyond a child’s control. The back and seat were set at ninety-degrees though, I swear, the back tilted in a bit in several rows. During the service my parents quietly (you know the look) encouraged me not to squirm and to sit up like a big boy—bottom in the corner, legs dangling over the edge. This I found impossible as sitting like a big boy with my bottom in the corner meant my little boy legs did not reach far enough to dangle over the edge. Consequently my calves rested painfully on the front of the pew cutting off my circulation within minutes and causing what I called “stinglies” to vibrate from my toes half way up my body. At that point I slid noisily onto the floor and then could not stand because my legs were no longer connected. One of my parents would put me back on the pew whereupon the cycle repeated and this brings me to my next complaint—the preaching.

The preaching was after all the only reason I endured the pews and honestly I never really understood much of it. My earliest recollection was feeling frightened by an angry man, Reverend Perry, who strutted and screamed. The style was not consistent with our denominational heritage and fortunately he was our pastor for only a couple years. Unfortunately those were the very years I became able to retain memories. After he left, it was a new pastor every year or so and not one prepared sermons for children. So a sermon was twenty-five minutes of stinglies and mind numbing incomprehension to be endured until we all mumbled the final fourteen-verse hymnslog during which time my grandmother could have killed, cleaned and cooked a Sunday chicken.

At the beginning of seventh grade, I was required to enter a two-year study called Confirmation. Two buddies and I met with our pastor for an hour or so every Saturday morning and I did perhaps another hour of homework each week. We were given an elementary overview of the Bible, Church History and Christian Belief but none of it felt elementary to me. It felt important, sometimes confusing and mostly difficult particularly the memorization—the books of the Bible, The Apostle’s Creed and much more that I’ve forgotten. At the end of two years, if we believed what we were taught and were willing to say so in front of the congregation, we were invited to join the church as official members. I believed it all and gladly joined but I can’t say I enjoyed the Confirmation experience very much. Actually, I can’t say I remember it much.

I have one slide taken on Confirmation Sunday. I stand at the front of the church. I am white robed like my friends Curt and Phil on each side. Behind us stands our pastor in a black suit. I don’t know whose fault it is but the picture is terribly out of focus. I don’t know whose fault it is—probably my own—but that’s the way I remember Confirmation too.

Fortunately my church experience was not all so difficult. In fact some of it was wonderful. Our congregation began in 1900 as The Swedish Mission Covenant Church. By the time I was born they’d dropped their Nordic moniker but held on to many of their best traditions. One of them was the annual Christmas Smorgasbord—probably the envy of every other Christian in town and most of the heathens too. Since we had nowhere to eat at the church, we rented the top floor of the Grange Hall. Parking on side streets, we walked the sidewalks between deep mounds of shoveled snow and climbed the crooked outside stairs to the banquet hall. Even before opening the door our nostrils flared with the spicy smell of a couple hundred thousand Swedish calories.

The windows dripped from heat rising off tables full of steaming food. In the kitchen, women in fine dresses beneath colorfully printed aprons looked as if they’d gained a few pounds from the sheer smell of it all. Meatballs, korv sausage, thuringer, smoked salmon, baked ham, pickled herring, deviled eggs, baked beans, rice pudding, lime Jell-O with pear halves and maraschino cherries, pickled beats, cucumbers, olives, limpa rye, hardtack, pepparkakor—have you had enough or should I go on? This was the kind of feast that historically made pillaging Vikings sleep for months.

As a special treat, at the end of the evening, each child was given a clear plastic gift bag containing a candy cane, a Hershey bar and a fresh Florida orange. This may not seem like a big deal today but it was then. In those days it was hard to find an orange in the wintertime and these oranges were the size of softballs. The candy canes were a foot long. I’m serious. And the Hershey Company hasn’t made a chocolate bar that big since Barney Fife left for Mt. Pilot—since Will Robinson got lost in space.

My church knew how to celebrate. Every summer, following the service on one particular Sunday we headed out to the Hooley property for a picnic. I never knew Mr. Hooley but he had a nice piece of woodland beside an open field and he offered it for our use. Picnic Sunday was the only time I went to church without a suit and tie. After the service we climbed in our cars and headed out of town. My father and some of the other men spent the previous afternoon scything grass for softball and putting up long tables in the grove. Ten minutes after we arrived, charcoal grills poured smoke from hot dogs and burgers. We shoved our hands into deep tubs of ice water searching for homemade root beer or Grape Nehi and then the eating began. Insert half of the Smorgasbord above and then add hotdogs, burgers, barbequed chicken, corn on the cob, apple, cherry and strawberry rhubarb pie topped off with rich vanilla ice cream made on site. What a great afternoon.

So here’s my point. I did not always love being at my church but I loved my church. Outside my home, it was the most important place in my life. Why is this so? Because of the story I heard there again and again. I could not escape the story then nor can I now. From my boyhood it wove itself seamlessly into my being. Here it is in a nutshell:

God who was omni-always (that’s my word for around from the beginning) made us all, made us perfectly and loved us completely. It couldn’t get any better than that. He also made us with free will, which was the best thing to do but unfortunately we used it to turn against him and that got us into terrible trouble because we became separated from our very source of life. This meant that we had to experience death. Death hadn’t even existed until then. So to help us out, God made us some rules. There weren’t even a dozen but we couldn’t follow them, which only made things worse. Some people were so miserable they just threw up their hands and quit trying. The only good thing about the rules is that they convinced us we couldn’t get back to God by being good. And that’s just what he wanted us to know.

Then he did an amazing thing. He came down to earth as a human baby. Talk about a great disguise! Only a few suspected who this baby might really be. Even his mother forgot from time to time. Anyway, the baby (who was named Jesus meaning “The Lord is Salvation”) grew into a boy. We don’t know very much about his early years. Only one story is told about him getting separated from his parents during a pilgrimage. He was twelve and they were scared nearly to death. One can imagine them thinking, “It’s one thing to look after a God-baby but quite another when he gets to Jr. High.”

The only other thing we’re told is that he never sinned. Then in his early thirties, after amazing many people with his teaching (not to mention his miracles) he got into trouble. He angered the religious authorities of his day until they figured out a way to get him sentenced to death. So Jesus, who was innocent and could have called down a few battalions of angels to defend himself (that’s a whole other story) instead allowed himself to be executed upon a cross. It was his idea to pay the price for all the sins that men and women would ever commit. I know. It’s crazy. Omni-crazy even. And there’s more. Jesus didn’t stay dead but instead rose back to life proving that he was God, more powerful than death and able to offer us a gift of life—full, free and forever.

This is the story I heard from my earliest boyhood. I didn’t often hear it all in one sitting, but week after week, month after month, year after year, in Bible stories and sermons and dragging hymns, through Advent and Christmas, Holy week and Easter, smorgasbords and picnics, in the lives of people sitting next to me in the pews, some who lived well and others not so much, the story came alive. It belonged to me. I could not be myself without it.

Of course, there is much more to tell. This is only a snapshot—little more than a thumbnail really. I know that some people haven’t given the story much thought. Others know it well and ridicule the whole thing. I stand with those who believe it is true.

At the end of the service, Rev. Perry would shout, “Let us pray.” I loved it when he said those words. It meant he was almost finished and then we could go home and eat.