Our Artist

Since he could speak, our first-born child has confidently proclaimed that he will be an artist when he is grown. Recently he laid out his detailed plan of how he will reach his goal…finish kindergarten, go to high school, then college and finally art school.

I think it sounds like a grand idea and I am completely supportive of anything he wants to do, with the exception of riding motorcycles and playing football of course. (But he knows these two activities are off limits already). Though I am clearly biased, I am sure he has a good shot at achieving his dream…he is a talented, creative kid with art in his genes.

But he received his first rejection the other day and I saw another side of him. The child who is quick to talk back to me, who often appears cocky at times, strutting around the playground as if he is ruler of the world, showed a softer side when his classmates misinterpreted his Thanksgiving turkey project.

The assignment was to disguise the black and white turkey so that the bird could escape being eaten on Thanksgiving Day. His twin brother decided the best camouflage was the planet Earth and he successfully transformed his turkey into a sphere of blue and green. 

The aspiring artist however, decided to turn his turkey into a baseball by drawing red lines vertically through the turkey. I admit that like his classmates, I failed to see a baseball and I struggled with whether or not to tell him, for fear he might be upset. I also had to fight the inclination to “fix” his work. I knew with a few minor changes we could create a baseball out of the red lines. But ultimately I kept silent and he submitted his project as it was.

The day his work was shared with his class, he came home, climbed on my lap (a very rare sign of affection) and shared that everyone thought his turkey was bleeding. No one saw a baseball. I hugged him, like any parent would do, and tried to absorb all his pain. The damage was done though.

So yesterday I checked out a massive book on art from the library. Together we flipped through it, randomly stopping on pages to consider whether we liked the work or not. We talked about why some paintings and sculpture appeal to us, while we dislike others and I tried to explain that there would always be people who misunderstand our work or who say not nice words that hurt us. 

I am not sure whether my message was received. He was so engrossed in the book and the diversity of the art that he lost interest in our conversation. But as I watched his eyes widen in astonishment at one particular picture, I had a feeling that he was not making any career change just yet.