Observations on Creative Expression
Since I’ve finally made a full recovery from my long period of illness, I decided to leave the den of infection this afternoon and take a stroll through the park.
I was sitting on a bench, feeding the birds the remnants of a poorly made croissant, when I noticed a young girl with a drawing pad watching me. She couldn’t have been more than four, and appeared greatly enchanted by the birds.
When she crept close enough so that I could initiate conversation, I asked her if she would like a bit of bread to feed our feathered friends. She nodded and timidly accepted the crumbs. A wide grin spread over her face as the birds gathered round her feet.
“I’m going to draw one, Monsieur!” she announced. She sat right there on the sidewalk and opened her little box of pencils. She worked diligently, her tongue protruding from the corner of her mouth as she concentrated on rendering her subject. Her final product looked something like this –
She asked me what I thought of it. “It’s a fine picture indeed,” I told her, examining the child-like mistakes in her portrayal of reality. “Is this a picture of the bird from the front or from the side?” I inquired.
“From the side.”
“Why have you drawn both of the bird’s eyes then?”
“Birds have two eyes, Monsieur.”
“Yes, yes. That is so. I see you have drawn the sun, but it is a cloudy day today.”
She looked up at the sky — for the first time that day, I suspect — and returned her gaze to the picture.
“The sun lives in the sky,” she said.
“Quite right,” I assured her. “Tell me about this blue line at the top.”
“That’s the sky.”
“And the green is the grass, am I right?”
“Yes.”
I pointed to all the white space in between. “And what is here then?” I asked.
The child gave me a look of tender patience. “The bird,” she said.
“Of course,” I chuckled. “It is a beautiful picture.”
“I’ll draw you next!” she declared, once again setting to work.
She drew a head, body, arms, and legs quickly, and then set to the task of rendering me exactly by examining the color of my hair and eyes.
She had just begun sketching my trench coat when her mother appeared at her side.
“Violet, I’ve been searching for you like a madwoman!” she said.
“I was trying to draw a butterfly but it wouldn’t hold still,” the youngster replied unapologetically, still absorbed in her work.
“Your daughter is quite a talented artist,” I said.
The woman’s face softened . . . until she glanced down at the drawing tablet. She gasped.
Violet’s upturned face sought to comfort her agitated mother. “That’s not his penis, Mama. That’s just the part of his coat behind him.”
I attempted to salvage the moment by explaining that the daughter’s advanced intelligence allowed her to understand that my coat continued to exist even in places she couldn’t see, but any hope I had of charming the little Renoir’s mother were dashed to bits. She scooped up Violet in one arm and delivered a smart slap to the side of my face.
But she kept the picture.
- an excerpt taken from Child’s Play (The Satirical Thoughts of a Genius Who Doesn’t Have All the Answers), submitted to W.O.M.P. for authentication.