She recognized that “must not” was easy to say, but not so easy to execute. Work on the morning figure, one that fell within Zorach’s instruction, was very slow and discouraging. Frances sighed in exasperation. “Looks like a bowl of porridge.” Later the same morning, however, her spirits rose. “Looks better, I think, but lacks oomph.” The following day: “Zorach’s figure pleases me more now.” Zorach agreed. “You’re doing fine,” he said. “Now do some more!”
To take a break from classes, and regain the imagination she sometimes felt she lacked, she turned frequently to the Central Park Zoo — the animals, the broad stretches of greenery, and peace — and there sketched happily for hours. To her surprise and pleasure, she met friends from earlier days in Canada, and strolled through the park with Joan Rowland, well-known classical pianist whom she knew from the Tannamakoon summer camp north of Toronto. She also met Mary King, a friend from her time in the Canadian navy. Mary had been an officer, and Frances had worked with her on a number of artistic projects. They had met again shortly after Frances’s arrival in New York. Visits to Mary’s home in New Rochelle, just north of New York on Long Island Sound, soon became a haven from the ups and downs of Frances’s creative life. It was in October that she spent the first of many wonderful weekends there; days that Frances never forgot. “Those weekends were so good; it was like home. It seemed so far away from New York, but it was only maybe twenty miles or so. And her house was wonderful. Over 250 years old. It was huge, almost a city block long, with a lovely garden. It even had a resident ghost.” When the weekend was over, there was the easy drive back in the dawn mist, the East River shrouded in fog.
“I seem always to be either elated or in the depths of despair. This morning Hovannes tried so hard to be helpful.” Full marks for Hovannes, but he was still “firmly noncommittal” when it came to her current work. So was she. “Zorach tore my afternoon figure apart and rearranged it.” It was one of those days. “I just wish I could get myself straightened out, but he did give me a lesson in observing and drawing.” The next day Hovannes spent almost the entire morning working with her on the drawing. “I really think I learned a lot,” she said. Then her constant self-doubt rose up. “Can I keep on the right track?”
A few days later, in what seemed to be her perpetual cycle of hope, black despair, and soaring euphoria, she still was able, sometimes, to fling aside all self-doubts. “Inspired this morning! Threw up a life figure that I definitely feel is a step in the right direction!”
Zorach agreed. “Good work, and well carried out! In art,” he stressed, “you must not do what someone else thinks is good and right. You must listen, and then make your own decisions as to what is right for you.”
Hovannes, too, appeared to like what she was doing. “Good day,” she said with satisfaction. “Started my seventh life figure. Seems to be going okay.” Then, once more, the agonizing slide down to uncertainty and loss of conviction. “Lack of energy throughout. Wish I could learn to think, damn it. I guess one is born with an IQ. Or without one.”
Then up again: “Both figures are coming along well. Went all out and bought some tools. They’re expensive, but lovely.” Then down: “I seem to be awfully low on energy. Don’t know what is the matter. Wish I could do more, but don’t feel like it.” Then up: “Zorach liked my afternoon figure! He said it would take subtle handling. I know I can do it!”
Hovannes was also delighted with her morning figure, and had it photographed. Frances took the photos home, and with a certain pride, showed them to her landlady.
Mrs. Berkovitz looked at them critically. “Will you be getting your instructor to sign a certificate to say you really did these?” Then she realized she was veering away from the really important information. “When you go back to Canada, how much money will you be able to make?”
Later that afternoon, back at the school, Frances sat back and felt that it had been a fairly good day in most respects. “But I’m absolutely beat by four-thirty. Should get a shot of something to put in my coffee.”
The last weekend in November was spent with Mary King in New Rochelle, a restful Thanksgiving and a welcome break before Christmas. “Beautiful day. Sawed wood, pruned bushes. Ate too much, bad night, will I ever learn?”
Back in New York she balanced her budget. “Very much in the red, but I’ll clear that up with more casting for the other students.” Her Toronto patron had financed her time in New York, but the grant wasn’t quite sufficient for all her needs. “I did a lot of casting for my fellow students. They were all very rich, and they didn’t know how to cast. Thanks to my years at the Ontario College of Art, I did, so it was to my financial advantage to do it for them, and I became a very good caster! I could finish a mould in an hour. One would think the students had never seen a proper mould! I got offers right and left. Everyone was suddenly asking my advice on casting. I cast a head for eight dollars. Eight dollars was nothing to them, but it was really welcome money for me.”
To supplement her grant and extend her time in New York she decided to economize on meals. She switched to dog food. “It was only twenty-five cents a can, and I could get three meals out of it.” Over the months, she would augment her meals with dog food for weeks at a time. “It was very good. Well-cooked. Good beef. Probably better than the Americans would have for themselves. Add a few vegetables and things. Very good. Quite nutritious.”
“Hovannes was in this morning. He didn’t think much of my figure. Started casting after lunch, had a light supper, then worked through the evening till ten. Joined some of the night class members for a coffee in their studio.”
Outside on the street she still felt the pleasure of Zorach’s words earlier that day. “We’ll make a thrilling sculptor out of you yet,” he had said. Nice to know, she thought. The night around her reflected her contented mood. It was fairly quiet around 11:00 p.m., crisply cold, a lovely night. She strolled east along 57th Street, crossed Seventh Avenue, passed Carnegie Hall, and continued on to Fifth Avenue, the Mecca of the upscale shopper. More money in their pockets than I have, she thought, but without bitterness. More money, yes, but are they happy? She laughed. You bet they are! Rather than turn south toward her room and bed, she crossed Fifth and continued east to Park Avenue. “Such a beautiful night, actually a couple of stars in the sky,” and she felt the growing yuletide spirit in her heart. Then, at Park Avenue, she gazed south, and in that instant was happier than any moneyed shopper on Fifth Avenue: “Suddenly, there, spread out before me, sparkling against the buildings of lower Manhattan, were big Christmas trees all down Park Avenue!”
December’s end saw Frances at New Rochelle with Mary King and her mother, Norma. Christmas day was sunny and clear, with no snow. And Santa Claus was generous. Frances’s gifts were a reconditioned radio, two cartons of cigarettes, ten dollars cash from Norma, and from The Girls — the sculptors Wyle and Loring in Toronto — came a cheque. Frances could not read it through her tears. “The Girls were so kind. And all this time they were probably wondering how they were going to pay the rent. Yet, they were giving the money they didn’t have to people like me.”
She spent a quiet, relaxed weekend, loafing. “The birds out on the lawn were hilarious, sliding around on the frozen surface of the bird bath. Each morning after breakfast I chipped the ice off it. ‘That’s enough skating, fellas,’ I told them. ‘You’ll never make it to the National Hockey League anyway, you’re too small. Time for a nice sub-zero bath.’”
Then came the return to the problems at school. “Tore down the morning figure,” she said, aggravated with herself. “And the next morning, after hours of work, it was still no good.” Hovannes, unfortunately for her spirits, was quick to agree. “You like long slim muscles; this fat chunky figure (the model) is too much for you.” His critique was prophetic. Later (and more successful) examples of her work would mirror Hovannes’s words: Tall, thin female figures, slim-waisted, some might say under-nourished, though