20 Years Ago Cluttered Back Room

For decades, I would make the journey back to my hometown of Natick, Mass. where my parents lived in an increasingly cluttered and even unlivable house in the forested suburbs of Boston. My original room was occupied by my mother and I stayed in what had once been my father's music studio. Now this room was filled with heavy furniture and stacks of my mother's art produced over 70 years. There was a small bed and another bed which was too decrepit to use.

I draw everything I see and this is the Cluttered Back Room. From left to right: work chair, broken. Art table built by my father, now covered with cluttery items. Against the wall, big paintings on hardboard panels by my mother. My backpack and a bench table covered with still-useful items. I spent many a difficult moment in this back room. When it was finally time to dismantle the old house and remove all the stuff in it, we found that the lower level of the bed that I had slept in for so many years was completely full of mouse nests.

Black tech pen on sketchbook page, 8" x 6", December 27, 1998.