A Dispatch from the Department of Weirdness

While much of my father-in-law's best work was marginalia, doodles quickly done on the margins of the newspaper or on the backs of envelopes or in his children's discarded marble notebooks we also have a collection of sketchbooks.

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In preparing for the visit of Rob and Gaetan from the Lost Art Salon, my husband has been bringing some of those sketchbooks home.

As I was going through one of the sketchbooks I found this image. My father-in-law didn't date this sketch, but other sketches in this book include a series done of my oldest as a just born baby still in the hospital, so this helps to date this drawing to 1988.

The resemblance to

our youngest who wasn't yet ( as the old women of my Hospital Hill neighborhood would say) " Not even a twinkle in his other's eye", is striking and at first glance kind of spooky.

Before you start playing the meaningful chords on an organ in your head, you need to remember a few things. One is that our youngest looks remarkably like my late father in law and has at every stage of his life.

The other thing to remember is a general rule in art is that every portrait any artist does looks in some ways like the artist - think of all of those wonderful Mogdiliani portraits as a fine example of that rule.

My son is both spooked and tickled by this prophetic sketch.

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