Art should be shared
Posted by Isabel on February 1st, 2008. Filed under: Back in the Day, My Sweet Babboo, They're just my family.My dad is a high school teacher. He has an office off from his classroom. He’s one of the few teachers that has this specific luxury. (I think it’s a trade off for how crappy the pay is. I’m not sure it’s worth it. But whatever.)
Students aren’t allowed in my dad’s office. Heck, when I was his student I wasn’t even allowed inside. Through the windows to his office I could see that he kept pictures of us kids on his desk. He had his college degrees framed and hanging on the walls. I could see his coat hooks filled to the brim with aprons (he teaches graphic arts and printing, so aprons are a must). I could see examples of students projects from years past hanging on the walls. He even had a shirt that a student, who had passed away, had made in his class.
When the students would get especially loud my dad would sneak inside his office for some quite time. I would see him sitting at his desk, on the phone, and know he was talking to my mom, probably making plans for her to come and have lunch with him. From time to time I’ve even seen him talking privately to a student in his office. When this happened, you knew something was up.
My dad also kept soda, candy and money in his office. You see, the school district he works for is especially poor. This isn’t good for his classes. Since what he teaches requires computers, printing presses, and all other sorts of multimedia equipment, he needs funds. Long ago he found that selling soda and candy to the students was a way for him to be able to purchase the computers he so desired for his labs. Thankfully he now has vending machines outside his classroom and no longer has to facilitate his own export/import business.
Long ago, when my little sister was much younger, she colored my dad a picture. This wasn’t just any child’s drawing, this was Art. You might wonder what made it Art. Well, the fact that is was done on velvet is what made it Art. I’m sure you agree. My dad appreciated that it was special. And so he hung it on his office wall. And there it’s hung for over fifteen years.
My sister is grown up now. She has a real job and a husband. She no longer does any type of art, velvet or otherwise.
Last time I was in my dad’s office was back in November. We all met there to have lunch with it. I walked inside his office for the first time in probably nine years. I smiled when I saw my sister’s velvet picture of a tiger, waiting to pounce. I pointed out to her the part of the tiger’s claw where she mistakenly started to use the brown marker before deciding that it should be more golden.
On the way home from that lunch with my dad, we stopped at a local craft store. You know, just because. There my sister and I found a velvet coloring kid, just like the one she had done for my dad so many years ago.
It was in the dollar bin. We had to buy it.
Babboo and my niece sat down the next day and worked on their masterpiece. They took turns with the different markers and the rest of us tried to ensure that no marker accidentally colored on the wood floors or the walls.
I wasn’t too thrilled about packing up a velvet painting and carting it on the plane all the way back to Seattle. So I left it, sitting in a pile on my mom’s kitchen counter. A few days after arriving back home my dad sent me an e-mail. The subject line was “new art for my office”. Attached was this picture:
Babboo’s Art had made the cut and is now proudly hanging in my dad’s office next to the tiger painting my sister had done so long ago. And I couldn’t be prouder.
So tell me, do your parents still have any of your childhood Art hanging around?
February 1st, 2008 at 6:13 pm
Oh my gosh, do I ever love those coloring kits. I have Angelina (3 yr old niece) this weekend and may pick one up for us.
My grandparents have a paper mache polar bear that I made in grade school. They also have this hideous ceramic welcome mat I painted while on an extended stay at the hospital. Hanging next to their front door. I cringe when I see it.
February 1st, 2008 at 6:20 pm
Awwwww! I love your dad so much!
There is a clay santa that I made in elementary school art class that still comes out and is displayed prominently every year. The little wreath that my brother made also hangs on the front door every Christmas. My dad is artistically inclined, so he and my mom have always encouraged and supported our creative endeavours. There is a lot of framed photography around their house, and all of it is my dad’s work. For a long time, before us kids moved out and my folks remodeled, if you looked around enough you would find pictures that my brother and I had taken, enlarged, framed, and displayed proudly on the walls. Taking a picture good enough to hang alongside one of my dad’s was a very big achievement.
February 1st, 2008 at 6:34 pm
In Kindergarten (1985ish?) we lay down on giant pieces of butcher paper and had someone trace our bodies, then we colored them in to look like us. Since I was 5, it was horribly deformed and I *really* hope I didn’t look like that. However, it was hung on the inside of the front door at my dad’s house until the day it actually disintegrated. Every time I went home to visit, I would see it, and it would make me smile.
February 1st, 2008 at 6:56 pm
I actually got teary when I saw that picture. How cute that your dad added the new piece of art to his collection.
My mom has a handprint I made in kindergarten still hanging on a wall & a napkin holder of my brothers hand in her kitchen
My daughter made a nativity at school this year that I already know will be set out every year. It was the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. I will email you a pic of it.
February 1st, 2008 at 7:01 pm
I love this story!!! and I love knowing your dad is an Art teacher who appreciates quality velvet artwork when he sees it.
My mom kept a lot of my crappy stuff from college but other than that – I threw most of it out or it’s in my attic, fading away.
February 1st, 2008 at 7:11 pm
That is so sweet!
When I was just learning how to write, I wrote a special “I plege allegeance to my Daddy, for hes the greatest Daddy in the world…” and drew a picture of a flag on it. It still hangs in our home office, in the same twenty year old frame, and it always makes me smile
February 1st, 2008 at 7:35 pm
AWE. That is the cutest thing, ever.
My husband has NOTHING in his office. I think it’s probably time to take some things over and hang them up.
February 1st, 2008 at 7:39 pm
I don’t even know what to say other than AWESOME. Your father is one proud Grandpa, I can tell.
February 1st, 2008 at 8:36 pm
I don’t even think my parents hung up my “art” when I was a kid. If they still have any of it – it’s safely tucked away in boxes they never intent to open. They love me, don’t get me wrong, but “art” just wasn’t our thing I guess!
February 1st, 2008 at 8:46 pm
My mom still has clay pots we all made in elementary school. She also has the three pots I made in high school in use around the house. She would’ve kept my clay pitcher, but I took that with me.
My dad has hanging in his workshop a “world’s best dad” certificate I made for him and signed it with our three names.
I love that your dad has those in his office. I bet he smiles thinking of his daugters and grandchildren every time he goes in there.
February 1st, 2008 at 9:13 pm
Well, both Kev’s and my parents encouraged us to study something we love in college. Which led to fairly useless BFAs and COPIOUS amounts of bad undergraduate art. Kev’s heaviest ceramics pieces have since disintegrated, but I’m fortunate enough to witness some REALLY bad paintings I did as a sophomore framed, FRAMED, in my mom’s house all the damn time. All I can see now are the mistakes.
There’s also a fluorescent pink self portrait I did on a snowday during grade school. It’s in my mom’s phonebook of all places. I really doubt she even knows it is still there.
February 1st, 2008 at 9:33 pm
That is so sweet!
I think my dad might have some of mine in his office at work, I do know he has my first angry letter to the cable company up there. (I know, it’s weird, but I’m really good at writing angry letters. I write them for most members in my family now.)
My mother isn’t one for sentimentality.
February 1st, 2008 at 10:58 pm
That is so great! I love that your dad has them hanging in his office.
My “art” is not a drawing or a painting, as that has never been a talent for me. I am crafty (cut, paste, color), but not artsy. I wish I could draw, but it just doesn’t come naturally to me. But my parents still have the Wooden clock I made in 8th grade industrial arts (shop) class. I cut it out, routered the edges, stained and polyurethaned it. It hangs in the kitchen over the refrigerator and has been hanging in a kitchen for the last 23 years (good lord I’m old). I love that it still hangs in their house after all these years.
February 1st, 2008 at 11:33 pm
mine is not hanging on the wall, but it does come out of hiding every year for thanksgiving. it is a piece of red burlap with my handprint on it. it was made in preschool and my hand is just itty-bitty. printed below the hand, in my teacher’s writing, it says “i’m thankful for daddy.” now, my dad and i get along fine, but we don’t have much in common and i wouldn’t say that we are “close” by any stretch of the imagination. it makes me sad to think that the three-year-old me had so much love and admiration for my dad, but the thirty-year-old me cannot even remember having those sorts of feelings towards him. somehow, many, many years ago, that connection failed to develop and we don’t have that sort of relationship now. i secretly wish that we did, but i wouldn’t even know how to begin to nurture it, or if he’d even be open to it.
February 2nd, 2008 at 1:30 am
My kid hasn’t made any art yet. I try to get him to color, and he just eats the crayons. Wait! I think you know that already…. Anyway, he found a pencil the other day and colored all over the window sill. My question is… why does he eat writing utensils when I’m watching, but when I look away he suddenly knows how to use them??
My French teacher used to sell pop and candy to students, and guess what she bought!!! A big screen TV for the classroom. She’s the best!
February 2nd, 2008 at 2:58 am
Awww…that is so sweet!
I keep all the art my niece and nephews make for me. Hopefully one day they’ll be able to tell a story like this!
February 2nd, 2008 at 6:34 am
Dang, that’s cute. How nice of your dad.
February 2nd, 2008 at 6:36 pm
Man, that rocks! Your Dad is awesome. So very awesome.
My Mom still hangs Christmas ornaments on the tree every year that I made when I was younger. Other than that, I can’t think of anything, but she’s saved a lot of stuff I made. It’s neat to see from time to time.
February 4th, 2008 at 2:38 am
That’s such a cute story! As for having any art hanging up, my brother and I lack the visual arts gene. When I was in kindergarten I brought home a painting that was so visually appealing, so clearly done by someone with strong visual art skills that my parents hung it up and started planning how to support my talent. Then one night during dinner my mom asked why I chose to use a particular color in a particular way. I nonchalantly told them, “Oh, I didn’t do that one. My teacher just told us to take a painting home, and that’s the one I chose.” Disappointed but still hopeful, they asked me to bring home all of my own paintings. *Every single one* featured a house under a rainbow with a big shiny sun in one corner and a happy family of four in the foreground. My art hasn’t improved any since kindergarten, either.
February 4th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
I love teh striped sides of the page! I have been popping form time to time and miss you.. and it is all my fault!
Yes we have art of my daughters all over our house.. I really should bring some to work with me…
I have never heard of velvet coloring….
Too cute of your dad to send you that pic and how wonderful is he to try and find ways to make his classorom better for his students.
February 4th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
My ugly pinch pot from kindergarten is still in the dining room.
That’s a very sweet story, thanks for sharing.
February 4th, 2008 at 9:47 pm
Not usually, but when Christmas time rolls around a lot of my “finer” works come out for display.
That photos is really sweet.
February 5th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Aw, how cool! I have the Christmas ornaments that my brother and I made when we were younger. This year I cried over the ones Jessica and Kelli made for me. I do have a lot of their old artwork and school projects, and I will definitely be keeping them for Maddy to have.