04.17.07 Empty Chair

I was raised by a dozen women in a daycare center.  My mom was the director, there to put band-aids on me, discipline me, check in on me and take me to lunch from time to time but those other ladies - my teachers - made their mark on me as well.

Marla was my favorite.  I was probably in the second or third grade when she began working at Lane’s Chapel Daycare Center.  An art and theatre buff, she sat and drew us kids with charcoal and pastels.  I posed for a portrait a few times I can remember.  I also remember sitting beside her at a tiny table in a classroom learning about impressionism.  How many second graders get to learn about impressionism?  She showed me pictures in her textbooks and complimented my compositions.  I’m not sure which I fell in love with first, Marla or art?

I still hear from her from time to time.  She’s read the blogs a few time and sent an e-mail just to tell me she’s proud.  She’s in video production these days, making commercials I think it is.  But in my mind’s eye she’s still a bubbly beautiful college student with little make-up, long skirts, a big laugh and an empty chair beside begging me to come sit and watch and learn.

I’m passing this experience on to Gabriella who’s now six.  We do art together every week.  I teach her some new word or how to use some new tool and she sits for literally hours with her tilted to one side, her lips relaxed and apart, her gaze intense, copying me, asking questions.

Today we went to the Frist Museum in Nashville.  She brought a small notebook and pencil and wrote down the names of the artists whose work she liked.  We talked about why she liked their paintings and how they were made.  She learned that when Picasso’s good friend died it left him so sad that he painted mostly in blues for the next four years.  I told her a painting in one color is called monochromatic, but she was more concerned about whether her friends would die too. Someday, I told her.

“I don’t want Natalie to die,” she said.  Then a long pause as we walked up to a painting by Van Gogh.  “If Natalie dies I’m painting yellow pictures,” she began again.

“Why yellow?”

“Because her hair is yellow.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I said and, trying to change the subject to a more cheery one, explained that some people think Van Gogh cut off his ear and gave it to a girl as a present but how he really cut off his ear on accident while having a seizure.

So I’m not the art teacher Marla was.  But I’m guessing she wasn’t as flawless as I remember her being either.  My hope is that Gabriella holds onto the same kinds of memories I’ve held onto from my days sitting beside Marla.  Memories of making art together.  Having the good in whatever I created complimented and being pushed gently to work on this or that the next time. 

And I hope the bigger lessons stick too: Art comes in all different flavors.  Taste them all.  Beauty is everywhere.  Look for it.  Create often and you’ll get better at it. 

And always leave an empty chair beside you.