My Father, the Artist

Just in time for Father’s Day, A.W. Davis shares a beautiful tribute to her father, an artist who took every opportunity to encourage and nurture Davis in her own artistic and creative pursuits.

After having two boys, my mother says she prayed to God every night for a girl to be all hers, but she got me instead: a daughter, yes, but when I wasn’t climbing trees or sticking my nose in a book, I was with my father. We’d spend summer weekends hopping around the Smithsonian museums and artists’ studios in downtown D.C., and winter days building snow cities rather than snowmen. We made stop-motion movies with modeling clay, collaborated on murals using rolls of butcher paper spread the length of the garage floor, and sat on the covered porch during thunderstorms and drew the lightning bolts as they flashed. Dad taught high school during the day, and at night he’d hole up in his makeshift studio in the basement, sandwiched between the washing machine and sports equipment, painting to Miles or Coltrane. I’d be right there crouched on the floor, tinkering with pastels, pencils, paint—anything but coloring books, forbidden in our house, as they “stifled the imagination.” Every once in a while he’d ask me what color to use where, or for my interpretations of a theme he was exploring. It was the safest place in the whole world.