Sunday 29 January 2012

Doesn't make sense to me either

Some moments, my eyes spill tears.

Not because my children carelessly wish me to be gone from their lives; neither because we have made messes of the last twelve years; nor because the future momentarily opens out, hopeless desolation and despair.

Nothing like that, although in living those states, I think I have earned myself some quiet weeping in a dark corner.

Today's tears (which really I should collect in an exquisite glass jar to place on the mantelpiece for my further emotional conjugation) is in response to a spectacle. An experience of light, sound, colour, and all forms of upended-downended-mind-mish-mashinins.

Maybe they were tears of relief. Because here is a place, as bizarre as the contents of my head, captured for me on stage.

That place in my head is a miserable, solitary place to be. Inside here, trees get up to walk off in an undignified huff, roses spit cruel blasphemies, and the sky sorrowfully collects its blue folds and sulks in a cave, refusing to come out.

Then maybe they were tears of recognition. I can't be the only freak who thinks that a giant claw can grow from a human body, how shells might blow and suck air as they run, how crisp, cut paper edges sway on dancing paper dolls, how an electric stick man can disassemble and reassemble its limbs, or how a human can walk, with fish head and fins.

Seeing my inside chaos come outside, taking external form more beautifully than I could ever muster, is all a little emotionally overwhelming. Worth a few tears.

But here's an educational point (there always is one, trust me). We educate for freedom of thinking. For art, I need to keep the early creativities of the children away from proscription and prescription.

I want to see Tiger draw, model, and stitch her own way through the days, follow her unique creative forms of autonomies, find her own mind, and explore her wilder impulses and streaks of bloody mindedness, so that she can make her own inside thoughts come outside.

I want her to have the wide and dangerous freedom that I hope grows her own recognition and enjoyment of her creative mind; not be placed, as I was, in a position where she must stop her line of exploration and deny her thoughts. I want her not to be set on a course where she can't have the confidence to change; I want her to have the strength and will to make and do, regardless of how wrong or bonkers everyone else might say she is. She needs to explore, until she is ready for structure and instruction, then you can bet I'm choosing that artist to help her with care.

Well, didn't make much sense to me either. Try WOW.

3 comments:

Irene said...

Yes, if you want that kind of creativity, you need freedom, lots of freedom.

sharon said...

Lots of freedom, talent and as we know personally a whole lot of parental support!

Kitty said...

"That place in my head is a miserable, solitary place to be. Inside here, trees get up to walk off in an undignified huff, roses spit cruel blasphemies, and the sky sorrowfully collects its blue folds and sulks in a cave, refusing to come out."

^^^ So beautifully written. I want to hug you and applaud you all at the same time. Remember to take care of you as well as those girls :) x