I have a confession to make.
I've always wanted to be a visual artist. After college, I was accepted into the Whitney Museum's studio program, but had just founded an organization for young women. Instead of following the dream I didn't fully know I had, I followed a way to give other women their dreams. Which ultimately created some problems. Which is why I abandoned ideology and became an artist anyway.
But I still wonder what kind of art I'd be making if I had kept taking
photographs of shacks and broken down cars in the South and showing
them in small galleries. When I see the work of artists I love like Julie Mehretu, Anna Mendieta, and Iranian-born Shirin Neshat, whose work heads this post, a part of me secretly wishes I had explored the other road.
But back to motherhood, the overarching theme of this blog.
Lately I've noticed that I comment a lot on the fantabulous creations my son makes with his blocks; the gorgeous sculptures he fashions from an African stool, a pouf from Morocco, an Eames side table. Yesterday he gathered a whole bowl of macadamia nuts and made a mixed-media piece with an old Fisher Price toy reclaimed from the give-away box.
I couldn't be prouder. I take pictures of his creations. I ask him questions about them--what were you thinking about when you made this? Why did you put this piece over here? And he has answers. Most of them include four or five made-up words and an awful lot of hand gesturing, but still.
While he's talking I think about Basquiat and how his mom took him to museums. And how she couldn't really tell him to create, but she showed him it was possible. He could be a visual artist. He could choose a medium and express himself.
I think about Picasso, too, when my son is talking, because my son is so dramatic. His use of color amazes me. His certainty about where each piece should go reminds me of myself, writing.
So of course I'm convinced he's an artist. And not just any kind of artist, a visual artist! An artist who will take all he knows of this world and create something bold and never before seen. Someone whose work will itself be a revolution.
But then I calm down and remember he's three, and maybe I am doing the living-vicariously-through-my-kid thing just a teeny, tiny bit.
What if Tenzin wants to be a rocket scientist and not an artist? I never want to hear him to say, "Mom was always encouraging me to make organic sculptures out of raw materials. She never suggested I go into math or science, which is what I really wanted."
So, I'm trying to chill out. To keep myself from making a catalog of his creations. Writing an essay about them.
But it's hard. They're so inspiring. So original.
They make me want to make a piece of art.
Which, of course, I just did.
Funny how life works.
