Louise
Oliver, Still Life with Glasses
One of our favorite places to play, all
throughout my childhood, was in cemeteries. We would go get fried chicken at the
Woolworth’s on Broughton Street and go with our sketch pads to the Colonial
Cemetery to picnic atop the family vaults that were all shaped like gigantic
brick bedsteads. Helen and I loved to climb on these strange bed-shaped vaults
and to lie there on the gently curved bellies of the tombs and play at being
dead. And while we played, Mother drew in her sketch pad.
At the very back of the cemetery was a
playground with old, rusted iron swings that shrieked when you swung in them.
Helen and I loved to swing high and make the swings shriek mournfully—the cry of
our flight. on the other side of the brick wall, overlooking the playground,
rose the Savannah jailhouse—a tall old building with a tower topped by a red
onion dome. High up in the jailhouse wall were dark arched windows where you
could sometimes see the silhouettes of men’s heads—the prisoners watching us as
we swung.
“You’re the greatest artist in the whole wide
world, Mother. You’re also the best, funnest, most beautiful Mother in the whole
wide world. And you cook such good food too.”
Mother made us say that to her over and over
again—every day. And I think we said it sincerely. Mother almost never
cooked—but when she did, what she made was always luscious. And I think Mother
was a great artist. There is an innocence to Mother’s work that is like a form
of revelation.
Over the years of our childhood, Helen and I
were to become Mother’s most trusted and devoted encouragers and critics. Mother
would call us in from the backyard to examine whatever painting she was working
on. We would make our pronouncements with great authority.
“It’s finished, Mother. Don’t do another thing
to it. If you touch it again, you’ll ruin it.”
“But isn’t it a bit sketchy?”
“You may think it sketchy, Mother. But that’s
part of its power—its sketchiness. If you touch it again, you’ll ruin it. You
know what happened to the last painting?”
“The one in oils?”
“Yes, Mother. We told you it was finished. But
you didn’t listen to us. And look what happened.”
Mother: “It got all muddy. I ruined
it.”
Wee all three look at the painting.
Mother: “So you’re sure it’s
finished?”
Edgar: “Yes, Mother.”
Helen: “Absolutely, positively
certain.”
Then we all three study the painting for some
minutes.
Helen: “It’s a masterpiece, Mother.”
Edgar: “Yes. Truly a masterpiece.”
Helen and Edgar together: “You’re the greatest
artist in the whole wide world, Mother!”
Mother: “What else?”
Helen and Edgar together: “You’re also the
best, funnest, most beautiful Mother in the whole wide world! And you cook such
good food too!”
And then we kiss Mother thirteen times—at the
end shouting out jubilantly all together, “Thirteen!”
This piece originally appeared in
The Folio Club’s drawing issue.
Edgar Oliver is a writer and actor. His
one-man show Helen & Edgar (2012) featured some of these drawings, all
of which are by his mother, Louise. Edgar’s newest theatrical work, In the
Park, was performed at Axis Theater this past spring.
