Outgrowing Childhood: an Ill Wind for Creativity

I have broken a rule. I know this. But I go ahead and ask, “Oh, sweetheart, what’s this ?”

She has come, The Artist, with a piece of construction paper in hand. On such is her rendering of, uh . . . of. . . a . . . um . . . .

Anyway, I have seen many, many such pieces of construction paper in my daughter’s hand. This particular one is orange, and a rather garish hue at that, but then again, who am I to question another’s creative choice?

Could this be, perhaps, where Van Gogh’s parents went wrong? Could just a little more encouragement at home have saved poor Vinny’s ear?

“It’s wind !” The Artist veritably screams, showing the unmistakable signs of an artistic temperament, already, at the age of 5. Yes, I am mighty proud.

And if it wasn’t nature that bestowed her with this gift, then surely my nurture of her artistic talents is filling in any gaps.

“Oh . . . yes . . .” I start, then deftly, change my tact.

“Right! Silly me!” I say with gusto now.

The Artist, she smiles.

But I am wondering if she is resisting the temptation to rub it in. “Yeah, Mommy, what did you think it was?” she has said innumerable times before. This, of course, was before I began my campaign to be Artistically Correct.

(Not that I, for example, said anything to her after a rather tender moment the other night before bed.

(While stroking my hair in gratitude for another bedtime story well read, she looked at me and said, “Mommy, why do you have those lines around your mouth?”

(I explained, of course, about the downside of a lifetime of laughs.)

But back to the wind.

I should have known, I suppose. We are on the letter “W” today. A witch is clearly represented on the page. A window is easy enough to figure out. But this, this wind , dare I suggest that it conjures up something else?

Is it, uh, Possibility? Change? Capriciousness? Mary Poppins?

And this, this black crayon effect that encircles what I see now, clearly, are gentle curls of air--or, then again, depending how you turn it, maybe biting Arctic gusts--this I would say shows a leaning toward the school of the advanced abstract.

If I had to guess.

Not that The Artist goes for much of that. Rarely does she take kindly to a mere archivist of her oeuvre offering interpretations on the meaning of her Art.

It is she who decides what is what and what we, her public that inhabits the same house, will think about whatever that is.

Got that? This, I figure, is how Picasso must have started out. The other one, that is.

When The Artist is not mocking the tenets of existentialism through her daring manipulation of what might appear to be the rather ordinary crayon-and-construction-paper medium, she is heavy into Paloma’s Tiffany style hearts.

Frankly, I have accumulated more pictures of hearts than a normal person could stand. But what with me being a mother, normal is a rather subjective state of mind. My daughter and I, we go through our steps.

“Look at this beautiful picture I made,” she’ll say.

And then, careful not to rein in her creativity with a rush to judgment myself, I’ll say, “ You made that?”

(What I’ve found is that the exaggerated use of one’s hands and facial features--you’ll want to open your mouth at least wide enough, say, for a tennis ball to fit in--goes a long way toward dramatizing the surprise effect.)

“Yes!” she’ll say. “All by myself!”

Here is where I will express even more awe. (Animated use of the word really works well). Then you’ll want to follow this up with a big hug and kiss.

At which point my daughter will say, “And I made it for you , Mommy. For your office!”

And then, of course, I will practically jump up and down. Because, you see, this means that the work in question may actually be removed from the home. The refrigerator, the walls, the shelves, the file cabinet, even the garage. We are running out of room.

Not that I would ever mention this to The Artist herself. Her job, simply, is to create. My husband and I, we understand this. The Sun. The Birds. Hearts. The Cats. Baby Sister. Hearts . . .

It’s all there in this soul nurturing art.

All children create, freely and without need of an excuse. That is, of course, until the virus of self-consciousness takes hold. We call this “growing up.” But it’s an insidious disease.