Grandma Lois Was My First Collector

Grandma Lois was my very first collector. Her small cottage home in Colchester didn’t have much in the way of fine art or high society decor but it was full of stuff: knick knacks, crafts, toys. Most people considered her collection of stuff to be “junk” and that may have been true, depending on who was looking. But to me, Grandma Lois’ house was my own private art gallery. The walls of her home were completely plastered with my artwork.

Imagine an entire living room full of deranged illustrations by a sugar-crazed ten year old. That was Grandma Lois’ house. And I was the sugar-crazed ten year old.

How lucky was I to have my own private gallery where I could show off my works to aunts, uncles, cousins and the Schwan Man!? Every inch of Grandma Lois’ walls was plastered with large poster boards depicting a wide range of sloppy characters I had drawn with my fleet of colored markers. From Batman to Pecos Bill to the Pope, I always had a wide range of subjects.

Lucky for me, there was no jury to vet my works. If I made it, she displayed it, much to the dismay of other visitors. I’m not saying I didn’t have talent at ten years old, but I can say that everything I was making at the time certainly looked like it came from a ten year old’s hand.

Grandma Lois didn’t care. She put it all up on the wall.

“What are you going to draw me today?” she would ask.

The options were endless because at Grandma’s house, I could do anything. I could be anything. I could make anything.

“Make me something pretty”, she’d say.

Maybe I’d draw a flower, maybe I’d draw Mike Tyson. No matter what I drew, it was going on the wall. It was all pretty to her. And she didn’t care what anyone else thought.

Neither did I. Going to Grandma Lois’ house was as close to heaven as I could get back then. She had everything a ten year old could ever want in 1989. She had an unlimited supply of soda, candy and chips. If I had a hankering for real food, there was always a huge pot of the best goulash on earth ready to eat. She also had a color television that I hooked my Nintendo to or played VHS tapes on late at night. And best of all, she had lots of big, white poster boards to create on with pencils, pens, markers and crayons.

If I ran out of anything, all I had to do was tell her as much and boom we were in the car on the way to Wal-Mart to get more. I was spoiled, for sure. I’ve always known that. In my defense, it wasn’t for nothing. I did decorate her home with a million goofy takes on classic characters.

I was a huge fan of Mad Magazine and though much of the humor was over my head at the time, I was captivated by the various caricatures of famous people it often presented. A common practice of mine was to copy these caricatures to the best of my ability while also putting them in new scenarios: scenes of Arnold Schwarzenegger taking a nap or Madonna making breakfast or Tom Hanks driving a spaceship.

And again, it’s important to realize for this visualization: all of these works were done by a ten year old.

They were shitty. An eyesore.

But they were mine. And Grandma Lois celebrated that before I even knew what it meant. In fact, I can say now she was a fan — my first “follower”. She was a collector — my FIRST collector. She believed in me and never let me forget.

Grandma Lois died when I was 25. And though they were severely faded and worn from years of sun exposure, all of those artworks of mine were still on her wall when she passed, serving as a permanent reminder to me that I was loved.

And that’s all any kid ever wants.