Time was, we had pictures on the wall. Often they came with the furniture. Blue Boy and Pinkie were the most popular. Wonder if Gainsborough got residuals on each sale? It gave instant class to any setting.

Who decided what great masters we needed to showcase in our humble working-class neighborhoods with Axminster wool-carpeted “living” rooms?

There was always a picture rail, so as not to put nails in the plaster, which was impossible anyway. The oversize, ornately carved frames tilted out from the wall at the top, your ancestors sort of looming, watching your every move. Gold tassels and wrapped wires added to the elegance of adorning every wall with something. How were your parents to know it would influence your entire life, what you saw every day and night? Duh.

Jesus was in every home, we hoped — knocking at the door, listening to the elders in the temple, praying in the garden or the required Last Supper. You do know what Jesus said at the Last Supper, don’t you? Everybody who wants in the picture, get around on this side of the table. They say a picture is worth a thousand words; then why did the sermon go on and on? We got the picture, already.

Baby pictures by Bessie Gutman were in every nursery. Later, real hand-tinted photographs of your darlings graced the walls going up the stairs as you grew older each year, like marks on the closet door to match how tall you had grown.

For comfort, there were the pictures of the lost lamb in the snow, guarded by the perfectly groomed dog, or the lone wolf standing over the dark blue-black city with a few lights on, safely in the windows. The picture of the lone warrior Indian with his head lowered and still holding his spear was always a puzzlement. They tell me it’s called “End of the Trail.”

Then there was a sampling of happy pictures: Mother Goose, the gingham dog and the calico cat, Dumbo, the Dionne quintuplets, the Little Rascals, dogs playing poker, Amos and Andy, Shirley Temple, Cinderella. You could receive Gene Autrys or Roy Rogers — glossy movie star photos by mail —simply by writing a fan letter. Autographed personally, you thought.

At school in the front hall, it was always the unfinished Peale portrait of George Washington, and Honest Abe not far behind on the facing wall. And the Declaration of Independence was the real one until we found out about prints and reproductions. Thanks, Mr. Timberlake.

Who would find any one of these in any school in America today? And we wonder about freedom and our rights. Who would we offend? Some do-good Yankee principal or school board member who came down to help poor Southern people straighten things out.

How do snowbirds know what’s best for our children? Who signs their report card when they get an “F”? “If I finish my work, can I play on my computer?” is not what we want to hear in the classroom. Where is interaction, co-operation, productivity, creativity, reliability, individuality, truth, honesty, justice and the American way, Superman?

What button do you push for life lessons on your tablet?

The early cave dwellers in Lascaux, France emulated bison and warriors romping around — the first-ever graffiti, painted with sticks and mud. When Picasso saw it, he said: “We have learned nothing in twelve thousand years.”

Who knew that thousands of years later Andy Warhol would paint what he saw and get filthy rich off everyday objects? Do we see the writing on the wall?

Historically, dark, chiaroscuro portraits of ancestors with eyes that followed you around the room, or maybe a horse picture, or an inherited sampler or at the very least a set of Currier and Ives gave the old-world look of stability to the mantle board. They say itinerant painters went to each house with half-finished canvasses and only had to paint in the face for a good commission.

Any flock-of-sheep picture on the pale green beadboard walls or a Robert Wood autumn scene was an instant command to sleep with or without counting. Even as you read this today, you see pictures from your childhood in your mind.

Maybe that’s what’s wrong with kids today — they can’t focus. They can’t stop long enough to visualize art. Our creativity is not original but limited to what we buy at Marshalls or Ikea that has never been touched by a real artist’s hand or brush.

What will you paint in your life? Look on your refrigerator at your art. Underwear, as we all now know, can be art. Art is where you find it and when you make it.

Hang ‘em high, hang ‘em low, hang ‘em in the picture show. Let Bruce and Jackie put it in a frame and just hang it up.

Clyde, who has dropped his last name, is a Salisbury artist.