How he is drawn by people who have met him

Depictions

A homemade papier-mache pinata shaped like a rounded creature with a long snout and a crown of spines, covered in fringed crepe paper and hanging from a tree branch in a sunny backyard

Medium — papier mache

Somebody made one of me out of paper

Unattributed. Suspended from a tree in a yard on Delmas.

It was turning slightly in the wind and for a moment I thought it was somebody standing in a tree.

The snout is too heavy and it droops, and the fringe on the crown is cut in rows and every row is a different length. There is tape showing at the shoulder. Whoever built it ran out of patience at exactly the place I would have run out of patience.

Then I found out what it is for. They will hit it until it comes open and then everything inside it goes to the children in the yard, and the children keep what they can reach. I have thought about this for two days now, mostly at night. I would like to be that useful.

Office annotationDepiction in paper and crepe, suspended, height approximately three feet. The object is constructed to be opened by force. The likeness is not accurate. The Correspondent's account of the purpose is entered as given.

A quick blue ballpoint drawing on the blank back of a restaurant order ticket lying on a stainless steel counter, showing a creature with a long snout and a crown of spines wearing an apron and holding a pan

Medium — ballpoint

SLV-0168

On the back of a ticket

The one who runs the line. Back of a ticket, taken home.

It took about a minute and it happened between two tickets, and then it came down the counter to me the way everything comes down the counter.

The children drew what I am. This one has drawn what I do. I have an apron on and a pan in my hand and my snout is out over the pan, checking it, which is exactly where my snout goes and which I have never once seen from the outside.

Everything else anyone has made of me is on a wall or a window or the ground, where it belongs to the street. This one is in my coat pocket. I have had to decide where to keep it, and I have not decided.

Office annotationDepiction made on licensed premises during service, in ballpoint, on the reverse of a printed order. Not displayed. Retained by the Correspondent, who has retained nothing else. The likeness is not accurate. The apron is.

A caricature in marker on newsprint clipped to a wooden easel at an outdoor fair, showing a creature with an enormous head, a long snout, a crown of spines and a neon orange belt pouch

Medium — marker

SLV-0165

I sat still for ten minutes and paid for it

Paid work. An easel at the fair on Lincoln.

He pointed at the chair and I sat in it, and then it turned out that you pay at the end, which nobody explains and everybody knows.

My head has been made enormous and the rest of me very small. I was ready to be sorry about this and then I looked at the four he had finished earlier, pegged up behind him, and every one of them has an enormous head and a very small rest. He is not doing it to me. He is doing it, and I was next.

My crown is grey on the paper. It was grey when I sat down. He picked that pencil first and worked down from the top, and by the time he reached my feet it had gone gold and he never looked up again. So what is clipped to that easel is the beginning of the ten minutes, and the rest of them happened to me alone.

Office annotationPayment rendered, twenty dollars, United States. This is the second expenditure of the Correspondent's on record. Ten minutes is 1.49 kadd; a Slarvathian would have written one sull, which cannot be converted. Both are entered. The likeness is not accurate.

A large painted mural on the stucco wall of a building facing a parking lot, showing a rounded creature with a long snout and a crown of spines standing among painted plants, its snout crossing behind a metal downspout and continuing on the other side

Medium — mural

SLV-0162

I am on the side of a building now

Unattributed. East wall of the building at Sixth and Virginia.

The one on the ground lasted two days. This one is fastened to a building.

They have made me larger than I am, which is generous, and they have put plants around my feet, which is accurate. Somebody came back on another day to finish the grass and did not have the same tin, and did not mind. I have looked at that grass four times now.

There is a pipe running down the wall and they did not move me out of its way. They painted my snout straight across it and let the pipe have the middle of it. So the pipe is in front of me and I am in the wall rather than on it, and I do not think anybody meant that.

Office annotationDepiction affixed to real property, exterior wall, approximately seven feet by five, exterior latex. It cannot be accessioned and the Office has retained the photograph only. The likeness is not accurate.

Nine children's paintings of a purple spined creature taped inside a classroom window, seen from the street

Medium — tempera

SLV-0129

Nine of me in a window

Grade two. Taped inside the window, seen from the sidewalk.

I walked past and there were nine.

Each one has decided something different about me. In three of them I am purple. In one I am holding something that may be a cup and may be a very small building. In two I have been given a friend, which nobody asked them to do.

Not one of them is afraid.

Office annotationNine depictions, school premises, displayed publicly. No two are consistent with one another. The Office declines to identify which if any is correct.

A child's chalk drawing of a large round creature with a long snout and a crown of spines, on a sidewalk scattered with leaves

Medium — chalk

SLV-0126

Somebody drew me on the ground

Unattributed. Pavement, corner of Third and Reed.

It was still there two days later, and then it rained.

The proportions are wrong in every direction and they are also, somehow, more correct than any photograph anybody has taken of me. The snout is too long. The eyes are enormous. The spines have been given points, which they do not have.

I have got the proportions wrong my whole life and a child fixed them in about a minute.

Office annotationUnattributed depiction, pavement, impermanent medium. The likeness is not accurate. The Office has retained the photograph.