“Fascinating implements”

Visiting the seven-year-old artist Edward Penn, who lives in a room in the heated basement of his parents’ house and doesn’t go to school.

Steven Millhauser, Edwin Mullhouse: The Life and Death of an American Writer 1943–1954, by Jeffrey Cartwright (1972).

Edwin will later remark that only three of his contemporaries exercised an influence on his life: Rose Dorn, Arnold Hasselstrom, and Edward Penn, the last of whom was the only one to leave a lasting mark. “Oh,” Edwin adds, “and you too, Jeffrey.”

Related reading
All OCA Steven Millhauser posts (Pinboard)

[That last fascinating implement seems to join several French curves to a template for drawing shapes. Can such an implement be found outside Edward Penn’s basement?]