Why we must keep art taped to the fridge
How my daughter created a piece of art so vulnerable and hopeful it took my breath away
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I didn’t come into this piece meaning to write about why we need to keep creating, especially when the world feels like it’s falling apart. But that’s where we’ll end up.
You see, my youngest daughter makes art. She doesn’t know it’s art, nor does she care. This lack of awareness or concern only adds to its beauty. She doesn’t enjoy ‘a brief.’ Unlike my other children, she won’t work along to a video or try to copy an image. She is flighty, in the best way. She has an idea and immediately wants to see it brought to life. And she has lots of ideas. She creates in a way that often leaves me saying, “Oh, ok…”
Sometimes she will describe the artwork she brings home from school as ‘rubbish’. I can hear the disappointment in her voice and when I try to reassure, her face crumples like the piece of paper in her hand, already heading for the bin. With further investigation though, I realise what she means is that her ability to replicate another (normally famous) artist is lacking. And, to be fair, whose isn’t at the age of nine (or any age for that matter). “It looked nothing like xxx,” she complains. Another child in the class will have produced something she deems to be more suitable. These conversations frustrate me as much as I think the experiences do her.
Because she has also moved into the sphere of art being, ‘something you can get right or wrong.’ I think it was Elizabeth Gilbert (in Big Magic I believe - a book I need to re-read. Am I right?) who spoke about this happening in school. When there is a shift towards art being graded. And suddenly children believe they are ‘creative’. Or not. And those children become adults who believe the same. Not true, of course. But it takes a lot of reconditioning doesn’t it.
But sometimes at school, more often at home, my daughter will create art that imagines someplace different. Give her space and she will decorate the walls of a house you’ve not even thought about visiting yet. Art that is more true than truth itself. Art that takes my breath away. Like this piece:
I want to tape this to the fridge. I want to frame it.
I want to frame it to encourage me to soften the edges I thought I needed to harden in order to survive. I want to frame it to reassure the nine year old (and 43 year old) me that sensitivity is a super-power. I want to frame it as a daily reminder to keep creating, freely, lovingly. I want to frame it because it’s made me think about what I want to write, in big red letters, spelt my own way, right up to the very edges of what is possible. With this same sort of conviction and clarity. What would you write? How would you write it? Grab a pen.
Children do that, don’t they. When allowed (normally automatically when young, you know because they haven’t ‘learnt’ to hold back yet) they create in the same way that they eat, sleep, cannot resist touching water. It’s not that they want to create, it’s that they can’t not. The world has yet to give its opinion. Their words on the page are just that. Their ideas have not overheard others whispering, ‘too big,’ or, ‘not for you.’ They haven’t imagined any worst case. And oh-my-goodness is it soothing and encouraging to be around this sort of hopefulness.
I was reminded of this poem Will You? by Carrie Fountain, shared within the community over on Poetry Pals last week (btw Poetry Pals is my other Substack - it is filling me with creative energy right now. Thanks
for sharing this stunning poem).I would never normally split a poem up in images but I couldn’t seem to edit this any other way. Read it elsewhere online here. Or you can listen to it here as you read long.
Since reading it I have thought about it often. When I’ve gone to shout over dinner about peas being made into a snake running across the table (accompanied by a cheer). When I’ve insisted I myself have no time for writing. When I’ve listened to the news and asked, “what on earth can be done?”
There are times, particularly right now when the world seems to be falling apart, with innocence of the sort referenced in this poem being torn away from too many children, when I’ve wondered about the point of art.
But then I read a poem like this one. Or a piece of writing like this by poet Hollie McNish over on Instagram. I continue with my new book, Pessimism is for Lightweights, by Salena Godden. Or I observe the way Palestinian photo journalist Motaz Azaiza uses his photography.
And I watch my daughter spread out her coloured pens across the table, hesitate for just a moment, then pick one up.
And I keep going.
Nelly x
This is just beautiful… and I have a feeling I will be reading more of this piece several times because there are so many good nuggets inside!!
I love this! Each of my children create art daily. As someone once reluctant to take up the moniker of "artist", it blesses me to see them enjoy it without label or care.