I have two distinct art-related school memories, neither of them positive. When I was in fourth grade our teacher designated Wednesday afternoon as crafts time. What that really meant was weaving on cardboard sheets that had been cut in particular patterns to accept the yarn looped around and through them. It sounds pretty easy – unless you’re a kid with limited dexterity. Books, pencil and paper were my strong suits. When you handed me a crayon, paintbrush or a ball of clay, my anxiety level spiked.
These were the days when kids went home for lunch. Home was only a block from school and lunch period was a full hour, so there was usually time to join my mother in listening to one- or two of her fifteen-minute soap operas, some in Yiddish and others in English, before heading back to school. But on Wednesdays, I pleaded with my mother to spare me the humiliation of those card weaving sessions. Couldn’t I just stay home and help her in the kitchen? That worked occasionally but my teacher, Mrs. Jones, began to detect a pattern to my otherwise stellar attendance record. One conversation with my mother put an end to that ruse.
The crowning blow to my artistic career came in seventh grade. Mrs. Levy was a demanding art teacher. In what must have been a still life unit, she set up a display of flowers and vases for us to copy. What I saw bore little relationship to what emerged from the end of my crayon or pencil. Mrs. L’s practice was to have each student approach her desk when they had completed the assignment. What she did to my admittedly deficient product can only be considered an act of pedagogical malpractice. Wielding a thick red crayon – it was an era when markers had not yet been born – she drew right over my lines to create something that more closely resembled the display she had set up than mine.
I can’t put all the blame on Mrs. Levy for my avoidance of artistic activities, but that humiliation stung so deeply that I silently vowed not to “do” art again. In the writing workshops I conducted with teachers for many years, I often asked the teachers to describe their own history as writers. Far too often, they traced an aversion to writing to the trauma of having their teachers mark up an essay or assignment in red pen in ways that paralyzed them.
I was really excited to be accepted to Brooklyn Tech for my high school years. Along with the Bronx High School of Science and Stuyvesant, they were the only schools in the New York City school system that required passing an admissions test. What I hadn’t counted on was that I had bought into three years of artistic hell – mechanical drawing and free hand drawing courses every year. The school had a diabolical system of calculating your grade point average which valued those classes as rough equivalents to math, physics and English. You can imagine what a hit my class rankings took in those calculations. In retrospect, I learned some valuable, humbling lessons about what it must feel like for some students who found themselves in alien territory confronting the “book” subjects.
Theseschool traumas aside, I do believe continuing to draw stick figures oninto my ninth decade reflects an innate absence of talent. When we lived in New Hampshire, we had a dear friend named Gregorio Prestopino. Presto, the name by which we all knew him, was an accomplished artist whose work appeared regularly in museums and galleries. Some of his prints adorn our walls and brighten our day. He once declared to me that he could teach anyone to draw. “You haven’t tried me,” I replied to his invitation. In retrospect, I regret not taking up the challenge because I’d love to know how far he could have moved me, but I was too deep into my aversion to making art to give him a fair chance.
All of this is on my mind since we returned from a dinner the other night at the home of dear friends in Evanston. Their walls are covered with drawings and paintings by Andy, the husband, his mother and grandmother. On his phone, he showed us the delightful birthday cards he has designed for every year of his grandchildren’s lives. I wish my granddaughter had some concrete mementos like these to connect us. Clearly, Andy has robust artistic genes
So, here we are, up against the old nature/nurture controversy. Was I doomed from the womb (good slogan for something. Not sure what.)? Or could I have been a better artist if I had grown up around it and applied myself to overcoming my limitations? The debate continues. Meanwhile, stick figures will continue to be my shameful trademark. I’m glad there’s one person in our household with the talent that has eluded me. This afternoon we’re headed to the art supply store to stock up on the materials Rosellen needs for the watercolor class she started last week. I’ll be really good at applauding what she produces when I pick her up at the end of class.
