A Life in Art (1)

Abstract

Even as a very young child, I knew how to draw. One day in fourth grade, when I was nine, the teacher told us to draw pictures of ourselves the way we would look grown up. Most of the children filled their pages with childishly rendered cowboys, pilots, ballerinas, and mommies. But I was developing early, and not only artistically. I already needed a bra, and I thought grown up meant being like the full-figured women I saw on TV. Imagining one of those sophisticated secretaries, I drew myself wearing high-heeled shoes, a starched white blouse, and a tight sheath skirt. I knew how to make geometric objects look real by using shading. The breasts on my grown-up self, I decided, would be so three-dimensional, they'd cast a shadow. I was immensely pleased with how real the drawing looked and was so absorbed that I didn't notice the excited attention of the other