Monkey with a Mohawk

S and my dad arrived this afternoon bearing many gifts from my parents' garden and from their attic. My parents are making it clear that they won't take it with them, so to speak, and we better start clearing stuff out now before we are forced to do so when they enter the "home". So three shoeboxes with fragile contents were carefully placed on our kitchen table. S was especially excited about one in particular and she carefully unwrapped it. I inhaled sharply. "Isn't it cool?", she said. "I made that...in middle school art class," I said. She knew and was beaming. Let me show you a picture and tell you a little story:




When I was young, I LOVED art class. I had the best art teacher you could ever hope for in elementary school. A dream who made you feel like you could paint the next Mona Lisa even if you were awful. Then came middle school. Art class stepped up a notch and it wasn't just manilla paper, clay and paint in old hamburger styrofoam plates. We did alot in grades 2-5, but it was a higher difficulty level in 6-8. I did a color valued painting of the Hushpuppies basset hound. My teacher was not a fan. We then had to make a clay box and embellish it somehow. No parameters other than the box better be right. I was running out of options, so I decided to make it like some weird idol off of some Indiana Jones movie. Why not, right? She HATED it. She crushed my dreams in front of the class, said art was not for me and I needed to give up. I am 41 years old and I have never forgotten that. For many years, I believed that to be true. Then I decided to make my own art in my own way. Sewing creatures and creating paper art. But I still never forgot her words. I felt somewhat redeemed when my children thought my mohawk monkey box was cool. I don't know what I'll do with it, but at least he's in a place where he's loved...by three kids. That's all I need.
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