artist, like Mom. As soon as we'd settled into the house, Mom threw
herself into her art career. She erected a big white sign in the front yard
on which she had carefully painted, in black letters with gold outlines, R.
M. WALLS ART STUDIO. She turned the two front rooms of the house
into a studio and gallery, and she used two bedrooms in the back to
warehouse her collected works. An art supplies store was three blocks
away, on North First Street, and thanks to Mom's inheritance, we were
able to make regular shopping expeditions to the store, bringing home
rolls of canvas that Dad stretched and stapled onto wooden frames. We
also brought back oil paints, watercolors, acrylics, gesso, a silk-
screening frame, india ink, paintbrushes and pen nibs, charcoal pencils,
pastels, fancy rag paper for pastel drawings, and even a wooden
mannequin with movable joints whom we named Edward and who, Mom
said, would pose for her when we kids were off at school.
Mom decided that before she could get down to any serious painting, she
needed to compile a thorough art reference library. She bought dozens of
big loose-leaf binders and lots of packs of lined paper. Every subject was
given its own binder: dogs, cats, horses, farm animals, woodland
animals, flowers, fruits and vegetables, rural landscapes, urban
landscapes, men's faces, women's faces, men's bodies, women's bodies,
and hands-feet-bottoms-and-other-miscellaneous body parts. We spent
hours and hours going through old magazines, looking for interesting
pictures, and when we spotted one we thought might be a worthy subject
of a painting, we held it up to Mom for approval. She studied it for a
second and okayed or nixed it. If the photo made the grade, we cut it out,
glued it on a piece of lined paper, and reinforced the holes in the paper
with adhesive Os so the page wouldn't tear out. Then we got out the
appropriate three-ringed binder, added the new photograph, and snapped
the rings shut. In exchange for our help on her reference library, Mom
gave us all art lessons.
Mom was also hard at work on her writing. She bought several
typewriters—manuals and electrics—so she'd have backups should her