Norman Rockwell, My Hero!

For years, I dreamed of becoming an artist just like Norman Rockwell, my hero!  I could barely contain my enthusisam and anticipation as I anxiously checked the mailbox each week to discover if the latest Rockwell cover on the Saturday Evening Post had arrived!  The stories they told never failed to touch my heart and connect within me on an intense emotional level.

Studying the cover, 'Girl in the Mirror', featuring a young girl, magazine opened to a photograph of movie star bombshell, Jayne Russell, doll cast aside, experimenting with wearing lipstick for the first time, gazing plaintively into the mirror, I knew just how she was feeling.  Would I be pretty?  Would someone ask me to the prom?  What lay ahead in my future?   The gawky, skinny preteen with big feet, toothpick skinny legs and long, narrow face with big, big eyes, gazing longingly at the Saturday Evening Post was worried!

The Post cover, 'Girl with Shiner', starring the spunky girl proudly sporting her newly acquired black-eye, scuffed shoes with untied laces, knees akimbo, hair a tangled mess, blouse hanging out of her skirt, red ribbon dangling loosely from her mussed hair,  parked outside the principal's office, patiently waiting for her comeuppance really hit home!  Being a regular tomboy growing up, and not one to let anyone push ME around, I really identified with that one!  I had actually whacked one infamous bully with my metal lunchbox outside Mrs. Haynes' studio one afternoon as I ambled over to my biweekly piano lesson after school dismissal. And like clockwork, here was this kid pestering me pretty much every day that fall of 4th grade and I had had enough!

So, it was on a crisp, sunny, autumn afternoon, that truly fedup with his boorish behavior, I just started doing a whirling dervish and let 'er rip.  Not sure where I landed the blow, but he never bothered me again, nor did anyone else, for that matter!  Although fear of getting into enough trouble to result in a trip to the principal was ever in the back of my mind, busting this bully's chops was worth the consequences!  And the band aid plastered on her left knee?  The scars are still visible, proudly earned from many a skinned and scraped knee, acquired while roller skating, jumping rope, climbing trees, sliding into home, walking on stilts, riding bikes, or playing hopscotch in that sleepy, rural Texas hometown I grew up in.

What a thrill to discover that one of my most favorite covers, 'Going and Coming' was published on the very day I was born, August 30, 1947! The painting is a split-screen snapshot of a family outing, according to the pennant fluttering in the breeze, to Lake Bennington, Washington, near Walla Walla.

'Skippy,' the boat, and a fishing pole lashed to the roof, fortell of the one activity dear old Dad is surely looking forward to! In the 'Going', the enthusiasm level of the cast of characters ranges from ecstatic, giddy and obnoxious to cautious, complacent, and just along for the ride. In contrast, 'The Coming' depicts the condition of the family after a long day of having fun in the sun: content, exhausted and just along for the ride!

Mike's personal favorite, the 'Family Tree', relates its tale of the ancestry of a typical New England family from the mid-20th century, to the Roaring Twenties, to the Wild West, to the Civil War, to the American Revolution, Puritan Days, and finally to the swashbuckling Pirate and his Spanish Senorita!  Interestingly enough, we discover that Rockwell used one model, a handsome young man with a distinctively broad nose, for each male depicted in the Tree, save one couple. The Puritan minister was Rockwell himself and his wife...the male model! Rockwell was full of humor and mischief, methinks!

The Norman Rockwell Museum, founded in 1969, is located in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where Rockwell lived for the last 25 years of his life. It has been at its current location since 1993.

Displaying 574 original works of art by Rockwell, the museum also contains the Norman Rockwell Archives, a collection of over 100,000 various items, which include photographs, fan mail, and various business documents.

His studio was moved to the museum grounds and is open to the public.  We scurry to it as thunder booms all around!

After a quick look-see, we hurriedly make our way back to the parking lot, getting soaked in the process as the bottom falls out of the cloud menacing us!  No worries, neither of us melts!