Friday, April 22, 2011

A story about Frank

The only piece of art of Frank's that I own is a little statuette of a Pan figure that was used as an award of some sort for a nudist group Frank belonged to. This was San Diego, after all. He used to encourage me to become a nudist; he'd get out the phone book and find their number for me, but I was way too shy for that. The statuette, probably circa 1970, was broken, and he said if I fixed it, I could have it. That and an excellent set of woodcarving tools were my inheritance from Frank, besides all of the knowledge and experience he passed on. Several of our models were from the nudist group. One, wonderfully named Mercedes, whose cafe I ended up working at as a barista, used to stop by the studio on hot days, complaining about the heat. She'd strip down and Frank would take her out to his garden and spray her with the hose until she was cool. After looking at his photo and thinking about this aspect of Frank, an image of him as a jolly little Pan kami floated before my eyes. Might have to draw him like that. Doing his part to maintain the cool.

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