Kansas University artist-in-residence Michael McCaffrey moves some paintings of his father, a subject of many of his works, Thursday, Aug. 27, 2015 in his Lawrence studio.

You can’t go home again.

That’s what they say, anyway.

Thomas Wolfe famously coined the phrase in his 1940 book of the same name, which told the tale of a fledgling writer who, after writing a successful novel about his family and hometown, is later driven out of the community by its resentful residents.

It’s not exactly what Michael McCaffrey found upon his return to Lawrence last year, when spurred by the death of his mother in 2012, the thirty-something artist decided to leave Minneapolis to move back in with his elderly father.

Turns out, McCaffrey could go back home again. But to a home he didn’t quite recognize as his own.

Lawrence was the same old Lawrence, but also weirdly unfamiliar, McCaffrey recalls. The bars he used to frequent in his college years felt different somehow, too.

And, exactly 10 years after graduating with his bachelor’s degree in painting from Kansas University, McCaffrey was once again back at his alma mater, this time as an artist-in-residence at the school’s department of visual arts, where he’s now teaching classes alongside some of the same professors he knew as a student more than a decade ago.

Most noticeably, his role at home — and as a son — has changed.

“When I last lived here, I was 25 or 26, and he was very much like Dad, you know,” recalls the younger McCaffrey, who for the past year and a half has chronicled his father’s daily interactions inside his aging west Lawrence home in an ongoing series of paintings. “And now that I’ve come back, I’m 36, and sometimes he feels more like Grandpa, if that makes sense.”

His father, also named Michael, was getting older. And the way Michael Sr. moved about inside the two-story, Reagan-era suburban home Michael Jr. grew up in, he noticed, was undergoing a gradual shift.

For one thing, the gray house with wooden siding was getting older, too. And because of his father’s advanced age, Michael Jr. speculates, certain areas of the house were prioritized over others.

Michael Jr. remembers returning home to find peeling wallpaper and rotting carpet in the house’s upstairs bedrooms, which he’s since removed. But he also remembers being struck by the level of care and attention given to his father’s motorcycle shop in the garage, or the “forest-like” garden in the backyard.

Both are recurring subjects in Michael Jr.’s paintings.

“I’m not good at that mechanical stuff,” he admits, sitting across from his father on the porch of his Oread-neighborhood studio. “I see it as colors and shapes, and I’m really attracted to the textures. Thinking of him in that space, there’s a real emotional connection for me.”

Michael Sr., his son proudly points out, is good at “that mechanical stuff.” He still visits the garage every day, but maybe for 20-minute increments instead of hours. “Things used to really get done out there,” but these days, the 76-year-old “just pokes around,” his son says.

Catching a side-eyed glare from his father, Michael Jr. backpedals a bit.

“It’s not a bad thing,” he tells Michael Sr. “You’re still doing stuff, but I do feel there is a very gradual slowing down of things.”

Michael Sr., who served in the Army and later worked as a detective with the Lawrence Police Department, likes routine.

He’s also spry, mischievous and full of energy — he feels “about 20 years old,” he says, aside from the occasional crick in his back — but he follows the same rigid pattern, day in and day out, that you might expect from an old soldier.

Michael Sr. begins every morning by taking the dog for a swim — “You ought to see her in a bikini,” he jokingly says of Huney, his Labrador retriever mix. “She’s the Esther Williams of Clinton Lake.”

Then, in a throwback to his police days, Michael Sr. goes “on patrol,” which basically consists of him driving around with a cup of coffee in hand, Michael Jr. says.

Then he’ll probably eat some lunch, take a nap, meet with friends for coffee, come home and tool around on the computer.

Unless, of course, Michael Jr. comes over for dinner. On most evenings, the younger McCaffrey likes to cook a big meal for the two of them, which they’ll eat contentedly over an episode of “Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations.”

Michael Sr. is proud of his son.

He still holds onto a yellowed, dog-eared newspaper clipping from 2004 about one of Michael Jr.’s early gallery shows. The Journal-World article and accompanying photo depict a young artist who at the time was still painting out of a makeshift studio at his dad’s old house.

He couldn’t afford models to pose for hours at a time, the 2004 article reads, so he convinced family members — his mother, grandmother, girlfriend — to take on the job.

Things aren’t all that different these days, Michael Jr. admits. After all, he’s still using loved ones — his dad in particular — as subjects.

Michael Sr., despite the occasional protestation when his “bossy” son bans reading material from sessions, says he’s happy to do it.

His opinion on the portraits?

“I think they’re pretty miserable. They don’t reflect my true good looks at all,” he says wryly. “They’re distorted and grotesque.”

Michael Sr. pauses for a moment, his face breaking into a sly smile, and offers his son a truly genuine compliment.

“I think they’re great,” he says. “I really do.”