The Art of Raising a Child

First published in the Tri-Town Transcript Apr 21, 2016

By Esther C. Baird

When I was a kid I had this artistic friend, she did things like doodle funny little bugs crawling up her paper margins tangled in swirling vines. Or, once in fourth grade we were asked to draw a landscape, and she drew a waterfall off in the distance that hinted at something really amazing just out of sight.

Meanwhile, nothing amazing at all happened on my landscape, and it was obvious that our art teacher agreed. Our teacher could have encouraged me to greatness, or at least a notch up from awful, but no, she left me to grasp alone for mediocracy.

This crystalized one class, still in fourth grade, when I went to see a drawing on her desk. “Keep your grubby mitts off that!!” She boomed.

To be honest I was a tomboy who lived in trees and often had ticks in my hair. I probably hadn’t washed my hands, what was the point? Pine sap didn’t come out with soap. So I didn’t care that she said that, but her comment gave me an official permission to sour on art.

It was lame. It was fussy. Artists were persnickety, cranky and crabby. Who needed their vanishing lines anyway? I’d rather go vanish into the woods and catch garter-snakes.

And then my youngest daughter was born.

Her finger painted blobs were intentional yet stirring. She assembled her mega blocks with thoughtful passion. She was fascinated by composition and lines. She was an artist, and I was at a loss.

So I did what any reasonable parent does when faced with a complex issue: I outsourced it.

I shipped her off to Miss Sandy over at The Art Room in Topsfield where they speak ‘artsy’ and there she’s created mixed-media pieces and still life renderings and decorative screen print pieces and, ok . . . whatever, I’ve run out of the list of art terms I know how to use.

As she’s advanced, my lack of knowledge has been a challenge. This winter they did a study on surrealism and she created a 3D piece that included an elephant diving into a couch underneath a flying chandelier. I knew it was cool and well done, but I just wasn’t sure why.

I went with, “Wow!! I love elephants!”

Recently they did a project with paint and paper and shiny colors and put it all together in this stylized way that was, I think, intentional. She called it her, ‘frankstella’ piece. Like Frankenstein . . . things all mashed together.

I put it on Facebook and instantly my good friend who is an interior designer and former art teacher, began sending me photo after photo of her and her not-art-deprived daughters, standing in front of an actual, uh, Frank Stella. Who, I NOW REALIZE, is a brilliant artist.

I realized I had to up my game. So when she told me that she was working on her final piece for the upcoming art show in May, I was ready. “What medium are you working with?” I asked.

“Paper mache.” She said.
“And what is the piece about?”
“Well, I guess it’s kind of about me.”
Ah ha! A self portrait! I knew this genre.
When I picked her up at art class I asked her, “Which one is yours?” She pointed to a white mouse on red skis. Huh.

I tried to deconstruct it in my head. We had mice in our basement, and it was a really bad ski season. Mice are bad like the season was bad, maybe the red represented her anger about this. . . ????

“Hmmm. So. What is this about more precisely?” I leaned in to pick up the mouse.