Tessa’s Apple
CULTURE VULTURE
Accidental Art, Part 2
Are there parents so cold and unsupportive that they never displayed their children’s art work — drawings, paintings or lumpy objects in clay — on the fridge, a kitchen bulletin board or window sill (at least for a while)? Parents who never tucked away a juvenile masterpiece in a baby book or album? (Full disclosure: I have actually framed three such paintings.)
Shortly after stumbling on Chapel Hill’s FRANK Gallery (see last week’s CV) I found my way to the Durham home of Ken and Jen Daniels and Becca, age 7, and Tessa, who turned 5 Nov. 8. Since they already have two excellent grandmothers, I’m known as Grandma Pie: Becca remembers the visit years ago when I arrived with a frozen Key lime pie.
The Daniels’ kitchen and much of the great room are decorated with the children’s work. It has, till now, been pretty much the typical nursery school and primary school products, best described as charming and colorful. But I was in for a couple of surprises.
Becca, in her second grade class at Central Park School in Durham, has been studying a variety of famous artists, doing some of her own “research” and learning about Van Gogh, Matisse, Miro, Picasso, O’Keefe and Kngwarreye of Australia, an “Aboriginal artist,” Becca informed me. Wikipedia confirms the identification: Emily Kame Kngwarreye (1910?-1996) was an artist “from the Utopian community in the Northern Territory.”
After studying the artists, the children were asked to paint pictures in the style of each artist, not to copy them but to create works inspired by them. Each child’s series of paintings was attached to a large rectangle of black paper, which they were asked to sign, and displayed gallery-style at an open house for family and friends
Van Gogh was clearly Becca’s favorite; she was especially inspired by his Sunflowers and Starry, Starry Night. These, and the mask-like painting inspired by Kngwarreye, look to be much more sophisticated art than the normal work of a 7-year-old. They stand in contrast, frankly, to the apt but much less striking pieces that completed her collection. What is truly amazing is that this display was produced in a regular, second grade classroom taught by Erica Bentley, not in a separate art class.
CV says hooray for Ms. Bentley and hooray for Becca.
The quality of Becca’s work made me take a closer look at the family’s juvenile art gallery. One piece stood out. It was Tessa’s college of an apple, created in an after-school art class over a year ago, when the child was only 3, at Chesterbrook Academy in Raleigh. The class was taught by art teacher Marilena Linardatou, who just happens to be on the board of the North Carolina Museum of Art, Jennifer Daniels reported. Combining paint and fabric, Tessa’s apple is a very respectable example, I thought, of a budding impressionist, demonstrating a nice sense of color and texture and a fine eye.
So CV also says hooray for Tessa and Ms. Linardatou.
We’ll keep keen eyes on the artistic development of both of these youngsters and be very grateful for teachers such as theirs. Years ago an innovative art teacher, whose name I’ve forgotten, actually borrowed an art gallery for a show of her students’ work, which I, actually, gently reviewed. Are our schools still supporting fine art? The vulture is hungry to know.
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Season’s starting! There’ve already been a smash world premiere of Bob Bowersox’s “The Poetry of Fear,” running through Nov. 22 at the Red Barn (see last week’s rave review by Diane Johnson), a wonderful Art Stroll on Duval, prefaced (by an hour) by the debut of the Council of the Arts’ member show at the Gato on Nov. 7, and yesterday, Nov. 12, South Florida Symphony Orchestra’s first 2014-15 master concert and a Deborah Butler opening. Stay tuned.
That’s all for now, folks. Gotta fly!
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