Holly is invited to a sleepover that starts at dinnertime tonight, and I’ll celebrate her absence the best way I know how: by cleaning up her room.
I realize how many principles of good parenting this comes into direct conflict with. Holly should clean up her own room. In fact, cleaning up her room should be a prerequisite for going to a sleepover. In fact, her room shouldn’t even need clean-up; tidying should be part of her everyday routine.
In the best of all worlds, yes. In my world, not hardly.
Holly’s room is a mess. Holly’s room is always a mess, with the rare exceptions of the times that I absolutely insist we spend some quality time together cleaning it up – which is less fun than a dentist appointment followed by a trip to the transfer station – or the times like tonight when I wait until she’s out of the house and then do a kamikaze cleaning job on it.
And it’s not good for any of us. The stress of seeing so much stuff all over the floor and furniture gives me a headache. Both Rick and I have stepped painfully on small, hard, occasionally sharp objects in the dark while up in her room saying goodnight. Things she needs get lost in the strata of materials. Small containers of colored water left over from painting projects have splashed on the rug. Beads have become embedded in the carpet strands. Library books have gone missing.
But she seems unable to improve in this area. She loves her mess, and as I wrote about last month, our trip to an Open Studios event didn’t help at all: Holly considers herself a practicing studio artist, and when she discovered that almost all of the professional artists whose workspaces we visited that day also favored a colorful but chaotic mess of art supplies and works-in-progress, it only served to fortify her argument that this is how artists need to work. “I like to see what I have, Mommy,” she says by way of explaining the necessity of keeping cloth swatches, sets of scissors, containers of beads, paint sets, books, paper, markers and more piled all over the floor in her room. “It helps me figure out what I want to do.”
Perhaps this is true and perhaps she’s just being devious, because the fact is that the way to put something over on me is to pledge creativity. Holly must know on some level that claiming her mess inspires her is the best way to ensure that I’ll never really truly insist that she keep neater. As a writer, I’m all about the creative process, and not a bit willing to stifle it in someone else.
Still, on that rare opportunity when Holly is out of the house while I’m home and it’s not what I consider work hours, I make my move. Tonight, I’ll pick up, and until she gets back home, I’ll enjoy the absolute sense of serenity that comes from a tidy, well-ordered room. She won’t be happy with my efforts. She will immediately start asking for items that she’ll insist she needs but that we won’t be able to find: the stub of a blue-green Crayola, a tiny booklet that she made for a tiny doll, three beads strung on a segment of floss. Inevitably, I’ll end up going through the same garbage bag I just filled in search of some obscure project.
But at least I’ll have until Saturday morning to know her room is neat. I’ll sleep soundly, happy with the order I’ve imposed on her chaos. And if once she’s home she starts creating that chaos once again, I’ll suppress my frustration. It’s all part of the creative process, I suppose. And who knows, maybe someday that same process with inspire her to create a new way to keep her things in order.
Showing posts with label art projects. Show all posts
Showing posts with label art projects. Show all posts
Friday, November 4, 2011
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Art in the making
All those weekends we didn’t make it to all kinds of cultural events that landed on my calendar in theory only – well, last Sunday seemed to make up for every museum, concert and performance I tried to get my family to, only to end up going for a bike ride or watching a football game instead.
Holly and my mother and I attended the Open Studios event at Art Space-Maynard. Art Space, we discovered, is an artists’ enclave located in a former elementary school – the 1940s kind, a wide red brick building with a steep concrete staircase leading to the center entrance and echo-ey linoleum hallways. Now, over 40 working artists have carved studio space out of former classrooms, offices and meeting areas.
I had never thought of taking Holly to an open studios event before, but it turned out to be a match made in heaven. Holly loves to make art, but I’ve often been disappointed that she doesn’t take more of an interest in viewing art – she frequently shrugs off my suggestion that we visit a museum or a gallery, even if there’s a particular exhibit that I think would engage her. But seeing how immediately she immersed herself in the studio-touring experience on Sunday, I could start to see why this appealed to her so much more. Rather than viewing finished art hanging on a wall or secured inside a display case – art so complete and professional it probably would look nothing like anything she had ever worked on – this was the down-and-dirty creation phase that we were witnessing. As we strolled amidst the work spaces of painters, sketchers, sculptors, metal workers, wood carvers, jewelry makers, textile crafters, and more, Holly stared: not only at the work itself, some finished and some just barely under way, but also at the clutter of materials and supplies that filled each work space. Paints and clay and canvases, yes, but also scraps of paper torn from magazines, snapshots pinned to bulletin boards, feathers, flowers, seashells. Here she could see something that reminded her of the kind of work she likes to do herself: using clutter and mess to create something.
Although it wasn’t an event geared toward children, the artists were uniformly welcoming to all three of us. Not only did they talk to my mother and me about their work; they drew Holly into the discussion as well. One artist who works in the plastic-coated thread known to campers everywhere as gimp gave Holly four different strands to work with and showed her how to weave a pattern of her own. Another invited her to sketch her own self-portrait and tack it to the studio wall. A sculptor listened to Holly describe the pottery class she attended last year, and all the artists offered snacks and beverages.
All in all, Holly was transfixed by the opportunity to see artists at work. When I asked her if she was ready to leave, she said “No, I want to stay a little longer: this is way more fun than I imagined it would be.” And the next morning, expecting to have to spend the usual five minutes or more trying to get her to emerge from sleep and head down to breakfast, I was surprised to find her sitting up in bed working her gimp pattern already.
Of course, there was a minor down side as well. I am forever asking Holly to keep her room neater, but every clean-up is followed within hours by the start of a new project that requires her once again to scatter crayons, markers, fabric, beads, thread, paper and tubes of glue all over the floor of her room. Now she had a reason. “Mom, did you see how messy their studios were?” she asked me the day after the open studios event. “Artists need to be surrounded by art supplies. That’s why I keep my room so messy.”
Well, I still have the authority to overrule that excuse. For now, it’s a bedroom, not a studio, and she’ll still be required to put everything away at the end of the day. But I think I understand a little bit better why it’s so hard for me to convince her to visit a museum. Never mind the classic masterpieces of the art world. Show Holly some crusty tubes of paint and a scattering of colored pencils, and she’s in her element.
Holly and my mother and I attended the Open Studios event at Art Space-Maynard. Art Space, we discovered, is an artists’ enclave located in a former elementary school – the 1940s kind, a wide red brick building with a steep concrete staircase leading to the center entrance and echo-ey linoleum hallways. Now, over 40 working artists have carved studio space out of former classrooms, offices and meeting areas.
I had never thought of taking Holly to an open studios event before, but it turned out to be a match made in heaven. Holly loves to make art, but I’ve often been disappointed that she doesn’t take more of an interest in viewing art – she frequently shrugs off my suggestion that we visit a museum or a gallery, even if there’s a particular exhibit that I think would engage her. But seeing how immediately she immersed herself in the studio-touring experience on Sunday, I could start to see why this appealed to her so much more. Rather than viewing finished art hanging on a wall or secured inside a display case – art so complete and professional it probably would look nothing like anything she had ever worked on – this was the down-and-dirty creation phase that we were witnessing. As we strolled amidst the work spaces of painters, sketchers, sculptors, metal workers, wood carvers, jewelry makers, textile crafters, and more, Holly stared: not only at the work itself, some finished and some just barely under way, but also at the clutter of materials and supplies that filled each work space. Paints and clay and canvases, yes, but also scraps of paper torn from magazines, snapshots pinned to bulletin boards, feathers, flowers, seashells. Here she could see something that reminded her of the kind of work she likes to do herself: using clutter and mess to create something.
Although it wasn’t an event geared toward children, the artists were uniformly welcoming to all three of us. Not only did they talk to my mother and me about their work; they drew Holly into the discussion as well. One artist who works in the plastic-coated thread known to campers everywhere as gimp gave Holly four different strands to work with and showed her how to weave a pattern of her own. Another invited her to sketch her own self-portrait and tack it to the studio wall. A sculptor listened to Holly describe the pottery class she attended last year, and all the artists offered snacks and beverages.
All in all, Holly was transfixed by the opportunity to see artists at work. When I asked her if she was ready to leave, she said “No, I want to stay a little longer: this is way more fun than I imagined it would be.” And the next morning, expecting to have to spend the usual five minutes or more trying to get her to emerge from sleep and head down to breakfast, I was surprised to find her sitting up in bed working her gimp pattern already.
Of course, there was a minor down side as well. I am forever asking Holly to keep her room neater, but every clean-up is followed within hours by the start of a new project that requires her once again to scatter crayons, markers, fabric, beads, thread, paper and tubes of glue all over the floor of her room. Now she had a reason. “Mom, did you see how messy their studios were?” she asked me the day after the open studios event. “Artists need to be surrounded by art supplies. That’s why I keep my room so messy.”
Well, I still have the authority to overrule that excuse. For now, it’s a bedroom, not a studio, and she’ll still be required to put everything away at the end of the day. But I think I understand a little bit better why it’s so hard for me to convince her to visit a museum. Never mind the classic masterpieces of the art world. Show Holly some crusty tubes of paint and a scattering of colored pencils, and she’s in her element.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
My messy messy car
My car is a mess again.
I always feel a small sense of defeat when my car gets messy. I know a few people – my parents being the number one example, but now my husband has recently started doing it too – who keep the interiors of their cars in showroom condition 365 days a year: not a tissue or a scrap of paper to be found. Getting into their car is like getting into a rental the moment you’ve been handed the keys: empty and anonymous.
But anonymous in a good way. A clean, well-organized way. A living-lightly-with-little-impact kind of way. Te be able to step out of the car without leaving a trace behind: that, to me, is organized.
What I am right now is disorganized, and my car belies my attempts to be otherwise. On the passenger side floor, my daughter's drawings from last week’s Sunday school session are piled with the reference book for my son’s math curriculum (they gave each parent a copy at Back-to-School Night, so that we could look up any questions we might have while our kids were doing their homework. The only question I have is why he can’t do his own homework by himself.), a copy of Bon Appetit that I’m hoping will inspire me to make some new weekday meals, the warrant from last month’s town meeting, a book that just came in to the library on reserve and that I really hope to start before my time with it expires, and, most discouragingly, six weeks’ worth of New York Times Style sections, New York Times Book Reviews and New York Times Magazines.
It’s the New York Times canon that particularly discourages me, because it reminds me how behind I am on any kind of intellectual growth. In the summer, when the kids do a lot of swimming and playing at the playground, I sit outdoors watching them and reading the New York Times. In the fall, I let it slip, and am surely a less enlightened person for it.
In the very back of the car is my secret pile. As I confessed in a newspaper column several years ago (and quite frankly got taken to task by several preschool teachers in my readership), I transfer a lot of my daughter's art projects from backpack to recycling, never to grace the interior of our house. It’s not that I don’t love her work; it’s just that there’s so much of it. Drawing upon painting upon collage. And almost always, she forgets about them the minute she deposits them into my hands: the joy for her is in the creating, not the creation, a trait which I admire from an Zen perspective even as I take advantage of it mercilessly by disposing of her artwork left and right.
Every now and then, though, she inadvertently calls my bluff. “Mommy, where’s that leaf college I did on the second day of school?” she’ll ask. So I’ve learned to use the back of the car as sort of a holding tank. I pile her work there and hope she doesn’t ask for it; after a month or so, I feel safe putting it in the recycling. And I never have to find a place for it inside the house.
Still, things are getting messy. Once when my son was about six, one of his friends climbed into our car, looked around, and said quite ingenuously and without a trace of sarcasm, “You know, you can clean the inside of your car!” It was as if he was assuring me that the technology existed and I need only avail myself of it, the way you might say to an elderly person, “You know, you can record TV shows that you won’t be home on time to watch!”
He was right, and I’m a slob when it comes to my car, and it’s a subject of ongoing guilt for me. So I’ll try to sort and empty and vacuum the interior sometime this week and make a clean start of it, see how long I can maintain a clutter-free car.
And then maybe after that I’ll wash the outside. At least I can rely on professionals for that. Or, at the very least, the Bedford High School cheerleading squad – they have car washes all the time. And surely they won’t judge me if they glimpse the interior clutter. It soothes me to think maybe their cars are just as bad.
I always feel a small sense of defeat when my car gets messy. I know a few people – my parents being the number one example, but now my husband has recently started doing it too – who keep the interiors of their cars in showroom condition 365 days a year: not a tissue or a scrap of paper to be found. Getting into their car is like getting into a rental the moment you’ve been handed the keys: empty and anonymous.
But anonymous in a good way. A clean, well-organized way. A living-lightly-with-little-impact kind of way. Te be able to step out of the car without leaving a trace behind: that, to me, is organized.
What I am right now is disorganized, and my car belies my attempts to be otherwise. On the passenger side floor, my daughter's drawings from last week’s Sunday school session are piled with the reference book for my son’s math curriculum (they gave each parent a copy at Back-to-School Night, so that we could look up any questions we might have while our kids were doing their homework. The only question I have is why he can’t do his own homework by himself.), a copy of Bon Appetit that I’m hoping will inspire me to make some new weekday meals, the warrant from last month’s town meeting, a book that just came in to the library on reserve and that I really hope to start before my time with it expires, and, most discouragingly, six weeks’ worth of New York Times Style sections, New York Times Book Reviews and New York Times Magazines.
It’s the New York Times canon that particularly discourages me, because it reminds me how behind I am on any kind of intellectual growth. In the summer, when the kids do a lot of swimming and playing at the playground, I sit outdoors watching them and reading the New York Times. In the fall, I let it slip, and am surely a less enlightened person for it.
In the very back of the car is my secret pile. As I confessed in a newspaper column several years ago (and quite frankly got taken to task by several preschool teachers in my readership), I transfer a lot of my daughter's art projects from backpack to recycling, never to grace the interior of our house. It’s not that I don’t love her work; it’s just that there’s so much of it. Drawing upon painting upon collage. And almost always, she forgets about them the minute she deposits them into my hands: the joy for her is in the creating, not the creation, a trait which I admire from an Zen perspective even as I take advantage of it mercilessly by disposing of her artwork left and right.
Every now and then, though, she inadvertently calls my bluff. “Mommy, where’s that leaf college I did on the second day of school?” she’ll ask. So I’ve learned to use the back of the car as sort of a holding tank. I pile her work there and hope she doesn’t ask for it; after a month or so, I feel safe putting it in the recycling. And I never have to find a place for it inside the house.
Still, things are getting messy. Once when my son was about six, one of his friends climbed into our car, looked around, and said quite ingenuously and without a trace of sarcasm, “You know, you can clean the inside of your car!” It was as if he was assuring me that the technology existed and I need only avail myself of it, the way you might say to an elderly person, “You know, you can record TV shows that you won’t be home on time to watch!”
He was right, and I’m a slob when it comes to my car, and it’s a subject of ongoing guilt for me. So I’ll try to sort and empty and vacuum the interior sometime this week and make a clean start of it, see how long I can maintain a clutter-free car.
And then maybe after that I’ll wash the outside. At least I can rely on professionals for that. Or, at the very least, the Bedford High School cheerleading squad – they have car washes all the time. And surely they won’t judge me if they glimpse the interior clutter. It soothes me to think maybe their cars are just as bad.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)