American Chronicles: The Art of Norman Rockwell

As I child, I remember walking into my grandmothers brick ranch, the indescribable smell invading my nostrils, filtering in between the strands of my hair and encapsulating me. I would glide my socked feet across the kitchen floorboards and plop down on the brown shag carpet of the sunken living room. It smelled like years of use. It smelled of my father’s childhood, the way I imagine it. It smelled of must. It smelled of the seventies. It smelled of dirt. It smelled of encapsulation.

During the cold months, I would warm myself by the fire, real logs at first, later replaced by gas logs after my grandpa’s death. I would sip bubbly cokes poured over ice out of real glass bottles, a treat, and stair mesmerizingly at the antiqued Saturday Evening Post script and Norman Rockwell’s images on the cups. The images portrayed little boys and girls embodied in childhood innocence emitting images of American life. The life in which my grandfather became a man and went to war, or vice versa. The life where my grandmother painted her legs with iodine and worked in the shipyard, got married, had a miscarriage and then gave birth to three other children. The life where dinner was an every night event, little boys played with pop guns and puppy dogs, girls played with baby dolls, and fathers read the Saturday Evening Post and didn’t have to worry about retirement.

The North Carolina Museum of Art will be displaying these images in an exhibit entitled American Chronicles: The Art of Norman Rockwell. I imagine strolling down the halls, peering at Rockwell’s original paintings, holding onto my grandmother’s warm hand, as she slowly steps back into the past. At one point, I look at the palms of her hands as if I was a fortune teller. The left shows the past. The right shows the future. Both appear wrinkly, warm, old. I have no idea what I am looking at.

All of this is only a dream. My grandmother will never see his exhibit. She is past the point where she would enjoy it. Now it only becomes a tiring chore for her, like so many other things. I see her seldom, but when I see her next I will scour her cupboards. I will search for memories. I won’t find the cups. They are gone. Along with the ranch house my father grew up in. Along with her youth. Along with my grandfather. Along with Rockwell’s American life. Along with it all.