Day 68

Another gorgeous day - sun and blue sky and the prettiest wispiest feathers of clouds. 

I have been teaching negative and positive space, using my bicycle as the positive shape, just as my strange and extraordinary art teacher did when I was at school, many long years ago.  This is one of the gorgeous results from a 7th grade student.  I love the way some children struggle with a new concept like negative space, and then suddenly figure out that "oh, you only paint the spaces", or "you only paint the white, Connor!" Such a new way of looking at something, only painting around and between things, instead of the object itself.

I have this 11th grade boy who is absolutely brilliant.  He brought in a piece he did over the summer, a huge drawing, maybe 5ft by 6ft, called Self-portrait as a child.  My eyes filled with tears when I had put it up and really looked at it, because it is a masterpiece.  It is filled with narrative, portraying a kind of landfill with bits and pieces of children's toys, drawings, the city of Paris in the distance, and a little boy sitting looking down from an old pipe sticking out of the soil near the top of the fill.  He said that as you grow older your memories of things change and a lot vanishes, especially childhood, particularly the very essential ways in which you experience life as a child.  So his drawing shows the tip of the iceberg of your childhood experiences, in this case portrayed as the top of a landfill. 

I have never had a student as talented as he is.  Today I told him that he has a great future as an artist, that he has an amazing talent.  He ummed and ahed and said that maybe he could do this, or that part wasn't really very good, etc., and eventually I just took his shoulders, turned him to look directly at me and said, "I am giving you a great compliment, the best thing to do in the circumstance is to say "Thank you.", whereupon he allowed himself a little smile and said "Thank you.  But I can still be self-critical, can't I?" '

Self-portrait looking at Self-portrait as a child.