Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Tonight's picture was taken in May of 2006. As you can see Mattie was holding a picture of himself when he was about a year old. The irony was that Mattie was standing in the exact same spot by the coffee table as he was in the picture. The only difference of course was how tall Mattie was in relation to the coffee table. In the held photo, the table was chest height, and in 2006, the table was practically at his knees. Mattie loved this visual comparison. 

Quote of the day: It's so curious: one can resist tears and 'behave' very well in the hardest hours of grief. But then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window, or one notices that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed, or a letter slips from a drawer... and everything collapses. ~ Colette

I relate to this quote wholeheartedly, maybe because the unexpected is what produces sparks of grief. In between running around today, I came home. As I walked into our commons area, I was greeted by a big blue rubber ball. The ball seemed to come out of nowhere, and for an instant, it reminded me of Mattie and all the things we used to play together. In addition, I had to put an item away that I brought to the kindergarten class and so I went into Mattie's room and moved books on his bookshelf. The simple act of putting an item back caused me to have a moment of panic. It is a moment of sudden realization that this is your life, that Mattie was once a part of it, and yet I will never see him again. Needless to say, it isn't a good feeling. I am not sure why these realizations get me every time, because naturally I know what happened to Mattie. But there are times I think the brain shuts off certain feelings as a form of self-protection. Therefore when I am not prepared to be confronted by grief, that is when I will be most affected.

Today was my third and final visit to Donna's classroom. We covered the friendship and rivalry between Picasso and Matisse. In order to cover this topic adequately, I had to introduce the children to another person in our cast of characters, Gertrude Stein. Gertrude was an American writer, very wealthy, and lived in Paris. She used her home as a museum, and featured the works of Picasso and Matisse on her walls. However, both artists vied for her attention and naturally her patronage. It was thanks to Gertrude that this rivalry began and flourished.

The children were confused about the word rivalry. When they pictured the conflict between the artists, they imagined them literally fighting. Perhaps physically with their fists. I explained that the fighting and competition occurred in their art. One would paint a particular scene and then years later after careful studying of that art work the other artist would do his rendition of the "improved" scene. In fact, Picasso's famous quote was..... "No one has ever looked at Matisse's paintings more carefully than I; and no one has looked at mine more carefully than he." Their rivalry actually inspired them both to be even better artists and at the end of the day, they both admired each other, and were deeply and emotionally connected. So much so that when Matisse died (he was 12 years older than Picasso), Picasso could not emotionally attend his friend's funeral. He never acknowledged Matisse's death at all, as if he couldn't and also wouldn't. He couldn't imagine life without the person who understood his life and works almost as well as himself.

As I began the last two classes, today, I also asked the children to raise their hands if they considered themselves artists. The first week, maybe 3 out of 15 students raised their hands. Over the past three weeks, I have been reminding the children that art is within all of us. That art is shape, color, and imagination. Since I know they have the capacity for all three, they are all artists. The second week after asking this question, about 7 out of 15 students raised their hands. Guess how many raised their hands today?!!!! ALL 15! Beautiful! But it got better. In fact, myself, Donna, and Christine were all in amazement. You wouldn't believe HOW much information they have absorbed and retained over these weeks. Many of them are living and breathing Matisse and Picasso. They can tell me about their lives, their personalities, their interests, and their art! There were several brilliant comments today that the students expressed. But the most memorable to me was the observation that through their friendship a cubist learned about color and a fauvist learned about form and shape!!!! What six year olds talk like this???!!! Well these six year olds do, and they captured the content of each presentation beautifully! As a former educator, I would say I was very successful, but not only successful, I am proud that I have introduced these students to the 20th century's greatest artists, I have helped them embrace art and the artist inside them, and most importantly have given them an outlet to channel feelings and emotions.

The children had the opportunity today to paint a still life scene that I created. When I asked the children if they knew what a "still life" was, I got some adorable answers. Such as if I stood very still, I would be considered a still life. I then explained to the students that a still life involved inanimate objects. Naturally I had to explain that word to them. Once I told them that an inanimate object can't breathe, feel, talk, and so forth. They got it right away!

Before the children began their still life paintings, Donna gave them a bit of a tutorial on how to begin this process. Some of the children traced a pencil outline on the canvas before they began painting their composition. We told them that there was no right or wrong way to do this and that they could focus upon one aspect of the still life scene or all the items presented on the table. That it was up to them to determine what to paint.
While the children were painting, I took each student one by one up to our "polling booth." I designed a paper ballot so students could vote for their favorite artist, Picasso or Matisse. The children handled the voting process very well and I can report that this class prefers Matisse over Picasso (10 to 5)!

I had the opportunity to capture some of the paintings today, and I wanted to share them with you. Remember these children are six years old, and in all reality it was fascinating to watch them observe the still life and then try to capture it as they perceived it. In this painting you can clearly see the green grapes, a big blueberry, an orange banana (Matisse would have been pleased, since Matisse paid no regard to the subject's natural color), and the pink colored flowers!





In this painting, clearly the flower arrangement caught the eye of this artist. Her flower is bold, strong, and towers over the blue bowl of fruit, not unlike a tree. It was an interesting composition that caught my eye.

The vibrant colors of the fruit in this painting are striking. The oranges are bold, along with the red apples. They may not be true to form, but the shapes are well defined by the brown line, which I assume represents the fruit bowl.

This painting also grabbed my attention. It did this because of the shapes and the colors. To me this painting is a beautiful representation of Picasso and Matisse. I love the big and bold RED apple, the beautifully round orange, and the orange bananas that surround the composition. As you can see, this was a painting in progress, since I captured the artist's hand in the picture.





To me this painting was all about shape. Though the colors are bold, the colors are defined by boundaries and I  love the huge green grape and the orange which are clearly defined, and the other items seem to blend into each other.









I love the colorful dots, which is clearly painting from imagination, and in the midst of this, you can see red apples, the orange, and bananas. Another fine example of the wonderful results that can occur with creativity using shapes and color.











I received a wonderful surprise today. Our friend Junko, gave me four strands of 9 praying cranes. You can see them in this picture. I attached them to the wall in our kitchen where Mattie displayed two pictures of himself and his close buddy, Zachary. Junko created these in honor of Mattie's ninth birthday which recently passed. These cranes are a labor of love, and I know the amount of time, patience, and effort such a gift entails. As I told Junko, the cranes mean a great deal to me. Junko and her mom made two different sets of cranes for Mattie when he was alive. These sets came with us on each hospital admission. They now hang from the ceiling in Mattie's room. In fact, I can't look at a praying origami crane and NOT think of my Mattie. As Junko worked hours to create these cranes, she said she "thought of every year you poured your soul, love, blood, tears and everything to raise and nurture Mattie." It was a beautiful sentiment which I have kept with me today and will remain with me each time I see these cranes.

This evening, Peter and I went to the art show that was hosted by our friend Tina. Tina met me earlier in the day and I gave her the Foundation poster I created last night along with several Mattie pieces of art. At the art show tonight, I snapped a picture of the Foundation materials and Mattie items.











A close up of the poster I generated last night. I am still in awe of the Ellison press machine that I used at Mattie's school yesterday. These cut out shapes that I glued to the poster helped bring color and life to this presentation.

In addition to seeing the 61 works of art on display tonight, we had the wonderful opportunity to be lectured by the artist herself. Jill Steenhuis grew up in Atlanta, went to Sweet Briar College in Virginia, and then after graduation moved to France to study art. She has lived there ever since. Jill began her lecture with a poem she wrote. Typically poems are a hit or miss for me, but Jill's poem stopped me in my tracks. Why? Because when she was eight years old her mother died. The poem basically reflected on this life altering experience for such a young girl. Her words and feelings were poignant and resonated with both Peter and I. She literally said the words Peter and I use often.... "it just doesn't matter." When you have a traumatic loss, many aspects of life NO longer matter, and after seeing the worst of the worst, there really isn't much else to fear. What is VERY evident is that Jill's love for art and painting is a direct link, in my perspective, to the hardship, grief, and loss in her own life. She channeled this loss into her art. As you talk with Jill, it is like an existential experience in which she motivates you to want to reconnect with nature and your spiritual side. Aspects of our lives which we sometimes ignore because we are bogged down with the mundane and the daily tasks. Needless to say, there were many of us in the room tonight who were contemplating vacationing in France and visiting Jill.

Pictured from left to right is Vicki, Peter, Jill, and Tina

For more information about Jill, please visit: www.jillsteenhuis.com!