Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Art

Many years ago, I meet a very interesting woman who worked as an art therapist for the Florida Penal system. Her work focused primarily on inmates who were serving life sentences – hard-core criminals who were capable of unimaginable acts of violence.

I like the idea of art therapy, and have a funny feeling that the person who invented the discipline was most likely a mother or father. When my son Tyler was a little boy, he was a prolific and talented artist. His art was a barometer of his feelings, often telling Tom and I what was really going on inside.

For example, when Tyler was curious about the “birds and bees”, he went through what we now refer to as the “Penis Period”. Basically, for weeks, everything Tyler drew had a penis. Houses, fish, trees, people (both sexes), the sun – it didn’t matter, it was all about the penis. It didn’t take long to figure out that perhaps it was time for Mom and Dad to initiate a discussion on the facts of life.

When Tyler was four, he had a pre-school teacher who recognized his special talent. We were thrilled. It was so validating for her to recognize what Tom and I already suspected – our child was a budding Picasso. She was a wonderful teacher and spent a great deal of time nurturing our little darling – encouraging him to verbally express how he felt about his art. At one point she started transcribing his stories - verbatim. Tyler was in his element and loved going to school each day.

So it was no surprise to see that many of Tyler’s masterpieces were suddenly on display in the foyer of his school. In fact, his art was the first thing everyone saw when visiting the school – an important first impression. Needless to say Tom and I were very proud parents – arguing over whose side of the family he inherited his wonderful artistic talent from.

Life was good in the Ryan family - so imagine my surprise when I picked Tyler up from school one sunny afternoon and detected a slight chill in the air. Maybe it was my imagination, but it seemed like the teachers and other parents weren’t quite as friendly as they usually were. In fact, I would go so far as to say that people seemed to be avoiding me. I tried to shake it off, telling myself not to be paranoid.

However, over the next few days, things did not improve. Let’s just say that I didn’t like vibes I was getting. I pride myself on being a people person, so it troubled me that I couldn’t figure it out. Was it something I said? Did I have bad breath? What in Gods name could it be!

Coming into the school one day - I noticed a crowd of parents admiring and discussing one of Tyler’s paintings - which of course was accompanied by a story describing what it meant to him. It was a large and colorful canvas which depicted me driving a car – and in the backseat of that car Tyler had drawn several TV’s and numerous boxes. The accompanying story talked about how Tyler wanted to be a smuggler when he grew up - just like his Mom.

It was fun trying to explain what it “really meant” to all of the other parents. I pointed out that it actually referred to the time I bought a TV in the states, and a kind border guard allowed me to cross into Canada without paying duty. Tyler must have heard Tom jokingly refer to me as his “little smuggler”.

It didn’t matter, the more I tried to explain to the other parents, the deeper I dug a hole for myself. It was as if I had said, “I am not an alcoholic, really I’m not!”

As you can imagine, this was a very embarrassing moment in my life. On the positive side, it did settle one dispute. Tyler gets it from his father’s side of the family.

2 comments:

Dil said...

Reminds me of a " funny" day in my son's preschool. You see my kids used to love running around the house naked after having a bath. One Monday morning the teaching asked the kids about what type of fun they had over the weekend. My son piped up " I had fun running around Baba's ( Ukrainian for grandma's) house naked."
It sounded like "I had fun running around Bubba's ( the guy in the trailer on the outskirts of town) naked!!!
Yes, I had some 'splainin' to do!!
" No no, he meant Baba.....grandmother......after a bath....."

Tyra said...

I remember when we came to visit you and Tyler was 6. My mom fell on some rocks and later that night, Tyler drew a picture of my mom falling and blood trickling down her face. For some reason, we all found it amusing...I guess because her fall made such an impression on him that he just had to draw it!