Where The He(art) Is

I can’t make art, so I compensate for it by decorating the walls of my house with as much of it as I can. My newest acquisition, titled Tableau, is a Michelle Weinstein dipping-pen-and-ink-on-paper original, hot off the walls of her Smack Mellon Brooklyn, N.Y. exhibit. It arrived from Los Angeles (where she lives and paints), wrapped in so many layers of bubble wrap that it took me nearly twenty minutes to cut it free from its shackles.

As I sat down on the kitchen floor to look over Moo’s magnificent gift, my heart swelled with pride at her depiction of wintery trees, spine-like in their bareness. I spent so much time kvelling that I left myself less than five minutes to drive like the wind to the library for my last day of volunteering at its community knitting program (say that fast three times - and I can guarantee that the skin around your mouth will tighten and tone). It was my last volunteer hour there until the program starts back up in the fall, so I didn’t want to be late.

For our last day together, our library leader decided to reward our knitters by introducing a simple take-home art project: decorating cheap tchotchke pendants with bottles of glitter glue. Our young knitters instantly turned themselves into mini-Picassos and Pollocks, while I cheered them on, oohing and aahing like the true art lover that I am. Each kid’s creation-in-the-making looked really and truly terrific (unlike their knitting projects, which often looked mostly not-so-terrific). Watching them effortlessly work like busy bees, I was reminded yet again how I tank at creating art (even though I rule at teaching knitting).

I didn’t want to admit up front to them that I’m art-impaired, so I plopped myself down at the “adult” table and attempted to imitate them. I started with silver (oh-so-sparkly and tiara-ish), quickly switched to pink, green (a disaster – I smeared it all over the letter i), purple, gold, and last but not least, blue, which was the only color not being used. Soon the other adults joined me in decorating (and appropriating glitter glue squeeze bottles from the kids).

As I dabbed dots of colors along my pendant’s letters (f-r-i-e-n-d), I found myself muttering that I was not doing a very good job, was I. One mom across the table from me was painting a magnificently colorful pendant, as was the one across from her. My friend L, on the other hand, seemed to be having almost as much trouble as I was. We whispered to each other that we were not only far from terrific, but missing the “art gene,” too.

The kids had finished with their decorating by then, so they gathered around me, the person who always gathers around them to cheer them on with their knitting. They weren’t cheering, though, when they saw the disaster I’d produced. Instead they shouted things like, “Oh. You’re not very good at art, are you?” “Do you want me to do this over for you?” “I can make this look better, if you’ll stop ruining it.” “Were you the worst student in art when you were younger?” “You should wash off all the glitter or you’ll never fix this mess.” “You might be ‘the ripper’ when you help us knit – but you’re the dripper today, because look at you - you’ve smeared glitter glue all over yourself.”

Oh, were they ever happy correcting me, their weekly corrector. Laughter and joy literally dripped out of their mouths, along with the pink-iced cupcake, hummingbird cake, and snickerdoodle crumbs they were chowing down on. I can tell you that they loved “fixing” my mistakes for once, instead of me fixing theirs, and that I loved that they offered to fix L’s, as well (it made me feel a little misery-loves-company better).

Once they were all done, they happily grabbed their artwork, and L and I graciously donated our made-over pendants to the girls who labored over remaking them. I thanked the librarian for my thank-you gift (a sampler box of Whitman’s Dark Chocolates), we all hugged each other, and then waved good-bye with our glitter-covered fingers.

And, oh, was I ever happy, because I’d never to have to see that pendant again. Smiling like the Cheshire cat at my hour of artlessness, I couldn’t wait to get in my car and drive myself home, where the art is.