Young Helen Frankenthaler Draws a Very Long Chalk Line
You remember Parson Weems
Who placed a hatchet
In George’s mitt
Helen chopped no cherry tree
In Central Park
I cannot tell a lie
Yet took her box of colored chalk
Clutched with baby fingers
Drawing one line
One continuous colored line
All the way home
On sidewalks and streets
From the front steps of the
Metropolitan Museum
At Fifth and 82nd
To the canopy of her
Park avenue home
At 74th
Young Helen scrawled
That single line
Point six miles long
Did her tiny back ache
From bending
over to draw?
Eight skinny NYC blocks
82nd street along Fifth avenue
To 74th where she made a right angle
Then two lengthy blocks between
Fifth across Madison
And ending at Park avenue
Would her parents have asked
Where her new box
Of chalk had gone?
Parson Weems might tell us
She used one piece of chalk
Or the entire box
But anyone who has used chalk
On a sidewalk would know
This tale is chalk poetry
.............................................
The Hellen Frankenthaler Chalk Line
Helen Frankenthaler grew up in New York City, ten blocks from the Metropolitan Art Museum.
She did not frequent the museum. However, she did play in the park just behind the museum.
Robert Motherwell, to whom she was married, was fond of one particular tale Helen told again and again about her childhood visit to that playground and what she once did on her way back home. Helen professes there is no significance to the story, yet she told it repeatedly, even to Barbara Rose. The following is part of the actual transcript of Barbara Rose’s interview with Helen Frankenthaler for the Archives of American Art:
MS. FRANKENTHALER: Well, when I think of what I did that has to do with painting now, there are a couple of stories that I told Bob that I don't make anything out of but that always fascinated him. One was that at five or six I would be taken to Central Park, with chalk, like every other kid, and for a winter insisted, I used to play behind the Met, on that playground, on going home, we lived at 74th Street and Park, and the Met's at 82nd and Fifth, I'd start with one piece of chalk behind the Met, they had a statue of Adonis, I would start from him, and without standing up, creeping all the way, with the nurse walking at half pace, draw one line until we got to our canopy and doorman, across the street, around the corner, through the, you know, so that everybody moved aside you know, and I wouldn't be stopped. I was very willful. And when I think of lines if I pursue it and go way back, that's the first line in my memory.
The approximate distance to be traveled is six-tenth of a mile; eight blocks south on Fifth Avenue to 74th Street, then a left turn from Fifth, crossing Madison Avenue, finishing at Park Avenue.
How many pieces of chalk would it take to draw a continuous line six-tenths of a mile long on sidewalks, down curbs, across city streets, up curbs and back onto sidewalks?
Search every word of George Washington and you will find no mention of an axe and a cherry tree
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