For Thursday, December 16, 1999 Drummer Column, Gibbs, 729 words

A big-nosed grin

I'm sitting here looking up at Mr. Big Nose. He's an oil painting that hangs on the wall above my screen. When I lean back in my chair and stop typing, in order to think, I stare right up at him. He calms me. Mr. Big Nose isn't looking back at me. His eyes are closed and he's smiling serenely at nothing in particular. The background is yellow.

I saw this grinning image of Mr. Big Nose in my mind many years ago, but I couldn't find a face to match it in the print shops, so I painted him myself. I got to design him just the way I wanted, to the best of my abilities, like building a deck.

One thing I know is making Mr. Big Nose happy this year. He has a lot of company. On all sides of him are other oil paintings of mine. They are packed in tight with little wall left showing. I just counted them. Twelve are hanging and a few are retired to the closet. I believe the total is 18. I've painted 18 pictures. Now, they are all in my den.

Several used to hang downstairs in the family room. On occasion a visitor would see them and make comment. They got attention like the motionless snakes at the zoo. Then we remodeled the family room -- tile floor and fresh paint. We decided my homemade oil paintings, many of them frameless or wrapped in frames I made in the garage, were a bit coarse for our new white tidy look.

We pulled them down and moved them to my small typing den. They surround us now, me and Mr. Big Nose, who smiles up to his eyes.

Of course, it wasn't the frames that settled the fate of my paintings. The paintings themselves played the lead. The truth be told, I'm not a very good artist. None of the people look anything like real human beings. They are cartoons. Their features are distorted. They are thin in the third dimension. My flesh tones are mostly the color of Bandaids. I never learned to mix my own colors to make skin. I would just buy "flesh" colored oil paint and add brown or white for shading and light.

I wouldn't say that I have a problem with backgrounds, but in nine of my paintings the background is solid black. Two are blue. One is yellow. Three have walls. The people-like creatures are in spotlight wearing candy colored clothes and making gestures that I intended to be symbolic, or at least enigmatic.

I invented six paintings, that I kept, throughout my teens. Then I didn't paint again for a dozen years.

I was in my 30s. One summer my friend, Mary Brewer, who used to live here and owned a piece of the old Bronze Seal, saw my six and offered to hang them on the walls of the coffee shop. That inspired me to paint again. I did 12 oils in one summer. I even took an art class. Then I stopped. I haven't painted since, over a decade now.

I have some audio tapes of me trying to sing at one of those boardwalk recording studios. Singing is a talent I really truly suck at. I can't carry a tune across the street. But I like to sing, so blast it all. Along with my kids we recorded, "I Wanna Be a Cowboy," "That's What Friends are For," "Under the Boardwalk," and "Born to be Wild." No one outside of a few close family friends have ever heard these recordings. The rumor that they will soon be available as MP3s on my website is vicious, and I shouldn't have started it.

So, I'm looking up at Mr. Big Nose. He helps me remember the time I tried stand-up comedy in college. I forgot to use jokes. It didn't go over well. Years later, I tried my hand at comedy again by playing MC at a retirement party back at AT&T. It went a wee bit better, except for the intense sweating. Determined to improve, I became a teacher.

So, now I'm looking up at Mr. Big Nose. He is reminding me that I have a column to write. He is reminding me that I have a column to paint. He is reminding me that I have a column to sing.