No. 232: Dads and Daughters

No. 232, January 2014

Click on image to enlarge

Any decent father looking at this drawing knows that dads and daughters have a special relationship -- and a constant kind of pain.

The first person a daughter runs to in a crisis is her father, and the first person to get the blame, many times, is dad. 

We are one another, yet we don’t understand each other.
Truthfully the years have shown me that we never will. 

The portrait above is, of course, not me.  It’s one of four pieces to be completed by March, on commission.  This was ordered by a mom – though not the girl's mother.

So, I do not know them and I have no frame of reference for the event that led to the original photograph. All that I can deduce from poring over their smiles for a week is that they are having a good time together. They are happy.

And, they love each other – no matter what background static there may be. 

There is always static with dads and daughters. 

Sometimes it's in the background, and many times it's not.

I have drawn my own daughters many times. They are all over these pages, and on my walls -- though hidden upstairs or in the basement at their request. 

It's hard for a dad to draw his girls. I have even gone over some of these, trying to fix them.  But my vision is sometimes clouded by emotion.

Neither of them likes any of their drawings. Too squinty, too fat, too grumpy, too silly.

That’s not how I saw them when putting the lead to the paper. 

Every dad sees his girls as beautiful. 
Even when they are calling him miserable and overbearing -- a demanding and unfeeling bastard.

But I know that they will always call.

And, they really should know me better by now.