OddThinking

All those people who scoff at modern art, saying “My 7-year-old kid could do that!” are missing the point. The amazing part is that their 7-year-old is so capable of producing such pieces of art that are so moving to their parents and grandparents.

When you are a kid, making art is the only job that you can do to pay your way. Colouring-in is the closest you have to real responsibility. Drawing is your only way to contribute to your family.

Don’t mock it, though. Colouring-in is a harsh mistress. As a child, no matter how hard you try, how much you concentrate, how diligent you are, you always go over the lines. Always. It is an eternal frustration, and it prevents the art from being all that it could be.

Adults, on the other hand, always appeared to have some secret technique, some magical ability to stay within the lines when they helped colour-in. Learning that skill is clearly a key rite-of-passage in our society.

One day, when I was about 9, our class had a substitute teacher. The teacher offered to give us a gift from the heavens. A technique – nay, a special technology – that would finally break us from our daily frustration. This was a sufficiently advanced technology, and it sounded like magic. The technique worked with paint, rather than coloured pencils, but that was plenty to begin with. No matter how clumsily we painted, the paint would not go over the lines!

First, the class was given some crayons, and each of us were invited to draw a large picture on a big sheet of butcher’s paper.

Then, we were handed brushes and water colours, and started to add the colourful detail that would turn our clumsy line-drawings into works of art – masterpieces that would bring happiness to our households, and ensure our parents would not evict us into the cold winter night for at least another week.

While we were excited by the new technology, we knew better than to push it. We all still tried to paint within the confines of the lines. Of course, occasionally, inevitably, we would slip over. Strangely, the paint did still mark the paper on the other side of the line. We just assumed that the teacher would eventually explain the next step that would cause the paint to magically disappear where it crossed the line.

The teacher watched us with confusion. We weren’t doing it right. She pointed at the one student in the entire class who had seen this technology before, and had understood what was being asked of her. The child had roughly sloshed a big, ugly, dirty-pink wash of water-based paint over her picture of a cat drawn in purple wax crayon. “See!” explained the teacher, “Just like I said. You draw with a wax crayon, and paint all over the page, but the paint won’t go over the lines!”

Every student (bar one) looked in horror at the hideous, monochromatic creation, and compared it to the drawing they were trying to bring to life with a full palette of colours. Their saw their dreams of imminent adulthood dashed, their hopes of sleeping in a warm bed in jeopardy.

It must have been odd day for that teacher. “I don’t understand; the class were all completely into it at the beginning of the painting lesson, but halfway through they all started getting teary for no reason.”