Clockwise from far left: an undated charcoal self-portrait by Donald A. Woodruff as a young man; Woodruff painting in 2001; some of Woodruff ’s brushes gnawed down at the ends (he positioned them at times with his teeth); a portrait of girlfriend Lauren Wilson’s father.


a lap tray. And the fence boards were porous, so the bold coloring of the sea took multiple passes from Woodruff ’s brush, exhausting his arm and fingers. On “drop days,” brushes and paint hit the ground with frustrating regularity, flecking his chair wheels with colored blotches. Woodruff worked for two springs on


the beach scene, fashioning a panorama of precise detail: a wispy blue sky, a win- dowed boathouse, a small fisherman dangling his legs off a dock — all an- chored by a white-walled lighthouse. From 2005 to 2006 Woodruff


worked on the fence while completing commissioned works that each con- sumed a week’s worth of labor. He missed the 2007 fence painting season after a kidney removal, and persistent infections in 2008 kept him indoors. “Don was either in the hospital or


a view,” Wilson said, and he devised scenes for the fence consistent with the decor inside the house. He wanted to de- pict a Japanese water garden to match the potted bamboo and accordion fan in the living room; red cardinals and dog- woods to commemorate the room where Wilson readied birdhouses to hang on the fence; and another segment of flut- tering butterflies that echoed the design on the clock and curtains in the kitchen. Flanking the house, on opposite ends of the fence, he planned two seascapes, which he started in 2004.


Woodruff ’s first representation, a


beach scene, was a tribute to memories of past summers spent at Selby-on- the-Bay and Beverly Beach, as well as a visual joke for occasions when their Silver Spring home would be coated with snow. He waited for warm spring days to work outside, and because he couldn’t sweat — due to his spinal cord injury — Wilson misted his face and neck to stay cool. But agreeable weath- er made the task no less grueling. He squeezed paint tubes with his mouth to extract colors, which he mixed on


painting,” Wilson recalled. “He was constantly looking out the window and tweaking it in his mind. The fence was the fun stuff.” Woodruff was one scene short of


completing the fence when he caught pneumonia this past May. He died a week and a half later, at 63, leaving the fence outside the last window bare. Woodruff never divulged details


about any of the pieces. He insisted on a slow reveal, telling Wilson, “Just wait a minute, and you’ll see.”


George Gonzalez is a freelance writer living in Washington. He can be reached at wpmagazine@washpost.com.


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