he really loved women – January

I started a series of illustrations about the calendar. Not too original. But in the collages I made I tried to eliminate most of the visuals, leaving a kind of sketch of a collage without actually drawing anything myself. Later I did variations on each one and then took small sections out and isolated them into individual pieces. All of this was done with an eye on creating a slide show.

And I wanted each month to reflect some experience I had with women. Experiences before I met my wife. A friend of mine, whose name will go unmentioned though it rimes with anaconda and argyle, once told me that he really loved women. Where did that leave the rest of us? Doormen? Or life insurance agents? But I knew what he meant. If there is a God and he is meant to be loved, he would have to be (in the eyes of men) a woman.

January was created after a girl I knew in high school. Her name was Patty. (Still is I’m guessing). Our high school was all boys except for 2 young ladies who came over from the local girls’ school to take some classes with us. One girl was a lovely long haired blonde. Patty was the other girl. She had a rather sad face that seemed to light up when she saw you and smiled. And when she smiled the whole room lit up. And she talked to me. I was… conquered. But very shy. I did not ask her out . When the school year was out I asked a friend of mine if he knew where Patty lived. (The same friend that rimes with anaconda and argyle.) He gave me her address. And so all summer at least two or three times a week I walked by her house hoping she would see me and come out. (I was too shy to knock on her door. I wanted her to think that I was just in the neighbourhood.) Sometimes her neighbours would give me a suspicious look. But I didn’t care. I was there for Patty. It wasn’t until the end of the summer that I learned that the house I passed all summer wasn’t hers. She didn’t live anywhere in that neighbourhood.

Postscript: I’m still friends with the guy whose name rimes with… And Patty and I later became friends for a time at college, although never boyfriend-girlfriend. Her nephew and my son later played soccer together on the same team. Patty became one of those ‘what if…’ women in my life.