primalmommy on tue 19 oct 04
Lili, I agree with you about the work of life. I am afraid that years of
a carrot-and-stick education have smothered our indigo children and led
us all to accepting the fiction that the brass ring means more than the
ride.
Work is poetry, art, even the ordinary if you let it in. Picking arugula
was the best thing that happened to me today. Wet, green, skunky, poking
up from a bed of bright fall leaves. It meant as much as a trip through
a gallery.
The fun is in the process, and I wish we had all learned in a way that
celebrated learning more than end results. As adults we are all so
hungry for what there is to learn about potting and firing and form, and
should probably ignore the voice that says it should all lead to a
degree.
One argument says that you cannot/would not assign yourself the kind of
rigorous challenges an MFA program would require; but why not? Mentors
are everywhere, criticism is wherever you are brave enough to ask for
it.
I am enamored of a predynastic Egyptian pot at the Toledo Museum of Art.
Last weekend I went down to the resource center -- available to
teachers, and to homeschool "teachers" -- and checked out a big storage
tub of everything related to ancient Egypt: books, slides, photos,
binders, statuary, games, reproductions, books, more books, videos and
CD roms full of clip art and exploration games. I wanted to find out
what there was to know about the hands/times that made this pot.
Well, Monday morning my kids dove into the box. "Can I try this/read
this/watch this?" They looked through curriculum guides for classroom
teachers and books suggesting projects, and have spent two solid days in
Egypt so far. Yesterday my pencil-loving son made a map of the lands of
the Nubains, Hittites, Mesopotamians and Egyptians, mysterious sounding
to him and magical like the maps of the Hobbit Shire and Mordor. I read
cool stuff to them aloud as I came across it, and they shared
fascinating bits from their readings. (Ask my 8 year old ANYTHING about
mummies.) Dad came home and we played Mummy Rummy after dinner, then
they took their Egypt books to bed. (Molly found one called "temple cat'
to take to bed with her kitties (4 stuffed, 2 real.)
This morning they built a pyramid out of glue and sugar cubes, complete
with side temple... fascinated by a book about Egyptian back yard
gardens with ponds and shade trees, my 8 year old dug up an old fish
tank and went out to the back yard to find three-inch maple trees, now
planted in the tank around a rectangular pond in a mossy "garden" with
little modeling clay people, toothpick furniture and flowers. They found
a recipe and baked date/wheat bread shaped in authentic loaf forms from
the period -- all from ideas in a book.
While I certainly encourage their ideas with my enthusiasm and
cooperation, (and I KNEW that "my" box of goodies would interest them),
I did not "assign" them these projects and will not "grade" them. There
will be no written record (well, except this post) or formal review or
diploma granted. Not even a gold star. They are having a BALL, their
brains doing what brains are supposed to do. It is Work-- self chosen,
useful, important and challenging. Now they have asked if we can have
"ancient Egypt night" with costumes and decorations and dinner eaten on
the floor with our fingers, pretending we are on the roof of our house.
Sure, why not?
Only a few will get the brass ring, but thousands enjoy the carousel
ride just the same. Only a few make 'the big time" in any
art/profession, but the end is not (as lili points out) the point..
merely an excuse for an interesting journey, a way to trick ourselves
into setting out goals just a bit beyond our easy grasp.
I would like to earn an MFA, see if I am "up to it", immerse myself --
but if I never get an MFA, I will not count my path as less valuable.
There are no obstacles, really; detours are just a circuitous route to
adventure.
Yours
Kelly in Ohio
looking forward to adventures in King Tut's tomb tomorrow
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