A Slice of (Still) Life
“Mom, why is today’s art prompt a still life? I don’t want to draw what I see, I want to draw from my imagination.” Top-notch implored.
Ninja Nuance promptly grabbed a sketchbook, opened it to a blank page, put it down in the middle of the table and said
“Can’t we do both?”
Meaning, draw the sketch book from life and add an imagined picture to it.
“OK” I said, taking the partial win and planning to revisit the techniques of still life drawing at a later time.
Aren’t kids terrific? All kids. They are intuitive problem solvers, effortlessly creative, they’re wanderers and wonderers and they’re simplistic in their presence. Being forced into a life slow-down has been a magnifying glass. We are living in limbo between the reality of what needs to be done and imagining, for better or worse, what could be. I feel it everyday. We have the time and focus to lament the loss of the way things were and at the same time slowing down to imagine the way they could be. This is exhausting. I don’t want to sleep, though, I want to take a lesson from our kids. Our present reality is more than what’s real today.
The kids and I did end up revisiting still life drawing a little later on. Top-Notch grabbed his prized frisbee, signed by the national Ultimate Frisbee team and a small hand knitted teddy bear that I scrambled to complete before his arrival back when my days were spent making plans for something that can’t be planned, motherhood. The teddy bear’s name is Happy and he’s Top-notch’s most cherished possession. The third item he grabbed was Brownie, an even smaller teddy bear from the Celtics gift shop at TD Garden. It’s a reminder of that game where he was on the court with his team cheering on Jayson Tatum who tossed Top-Notch the ball during warm ups. Also in the still life, a boomerang brought back from New Zealand by his grandparents and a plant that happened to be in the right place at the right time, sneaking itself into the background. His drawing was beautiful.
Ninja Nuance decided that her still life would be comprised of imagined objects that she was “seeing” in her mind. She assured me that they were as real as anything to her and her drawing was inspired. Her “objects” were a dolphin, her brother, and a tree. Dolphins are her favorite animal and have been since that trip to Mexico where she got to swim with one, bonding immediately and becoming hooked. They’ve even inspired her future career plans, a marine biologist/scientists/doctor/artist. Her brother is larger-than-life to her right now and I can always tell how the two of them are navigating their relationship by the way they represent each other in their artwork. The only surprise there was the tree, given that it’s challenging to get her to go outside and play lately and all but impossible to convince her to go for a bike ride. She has always loved playing outside; climbing trees, falling out of trees, getting scrapes, using those scrapes to convince her brother to give her an “ambulance ride” around the property and going right back up into the tree.
Above, Top-notch and Ninja Nuance started making a fort and ended with pillows, blankets, covers, a good book, and a good snuggle. The moment was fleeting but too good not to capture. To the right, my painting “Listen to our Children” as it is now more relevant than ever…
