Memory Lane

My sister left this comment in response to my request for NaBloPoMo fodder:

I think seeing samples of your different artwork spanning the last 20 years would be cool. From the elfy forest scenes to the horse portraits, etc. Favorite recipes, too.

Well, then.

20 years ago I was 19, and when I tried to remember what my artwork looked like back then I drew a total blank on the whole time period. I was all, “Let’s see…that was after Missouri…was I living on the Saddlebred farm? No, that was later; I was living…in that camper shell at the lumberyard? No, no, I remember now, we were all still in that little trailer in old man Egbert’s front yard.”

None of those residences seemed particularly bizarre to me at the time, but now I shake my head bemusedly as I type them.

When I was 19 I was working at the Saddlebred farm but not yet living there; my payment was feed and board for the wild-eyed yearling Arab filly I’d just been given by a nice couple who were going through a divorce and had to sell off all their horses. Stormy was too crazy unmanageable for anyone to want to buy, so they let me have her for free. This is what she looked like the day she arrived at the stables:

As you can see no one could get close enough to groom her; she looked much better after she’d had a bath and some TLC. Which didn’t happen right away, because did I mention the crazy unmanageable part?

For actual money I was working as a soda jerk in one of those 50’s-style diners that were all the rage in 1988. When business was slow I would amuse myself with the hula-hoops:

I can’t decide what I like most about that picture, my hat, my red suspenders or my little black bow tie.

Here’s another picture of me at 19, which I want to share because CHECK OUT THOSE BANGS. I think they had their own zip code.

So, artwork. I don’t think I was doing much of that at 19, or 20, because I was ALL wrapped up in my new horsie. Here she is at age 2…

…and at age 3:

I cringe every time I look at my hair in those old pics. Yikes. Gotta love that big-socks-pulled-up-over-my-jeans look too.

When I was 21 I was living with my friend Dani and her husband, working as a live-in nanny for her young son; I think he was three or four at the time. We and two other friends were heavily into rpg’s, and my artwork was mostly elaborately-drawn character sheet images. I don’t have any of those; they were lost in a tragic postal incident. Long story.

I do have this sketch from that year:

I like the study in conformational differences between the two horses.

When I was 22 I moved up to Anza and back in with my mother and siblings to help provide financial assistance. I stayed with them for about four years, and it was completely horrific. Fortunately for this blog, my abject misery found an outlet in some rather interesting art. I’ll be posting samples of that throughout the month, in chronological order.

Stay tuned!