Be Bold! Fill the Canvas! by Blanca Uzeta O’Leary

One day, when our son, Cav, was about six, Toller said, “Show up at the studio tomorrow and bring Cav. I’m going to teach him painting.” So, I went to the art supply store and I bought him a little smock, a cute little water colour set, a couple of little brushes, and a 12” x 12” artist paper pad. When we arrived in the studio, Toller looked at all this stuff and said, “What is that? He is not using those water colours, and he is certainly not using that little pad. Bye-bye Mum. Go downstairs.”

As I was leaving, I heard Toller saying, “Come here Cavanaugh,” as he was tearing off a huge, giant sheet of paper—about 4’ x 4’—saying “This is your canvas! We don’t use watercolours in here. We use oil paints! These are your paints. Just go for it and don’t worry about that smock. And make sure you take up the whole paper. Be BOLD! Here, we are bold!” So Cav did. And he made a big, beautiful robot. A gray robot with wings. It is framed and it still hangs in Cavanaugh’s room twenty years later.

Any day you entered Toller’s world, you entered a world engulfed with magic and vibrant colour. In the company of Toller, you always knew, bigger was better, more was better. Even now, almost every day, when some little event happens, I often think to myself, I wish Toller were here to see this. We miss him so much.