My dad and son in front of:
Doug Wheeler
RM 669, 1969
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
When I was seven, my dad was my light. My parents divorced, and he and I ended up living in a small apartment. Our meals alternated between the scrumptious fare on offer at Wienerschnitzel and Winchell’s and while eating chili dogs and chocolate donuts with rainbow sprinkles, we’d listen to Tom Petty, Bob Dylan and Minnie Riperton.
My dad had a way of knowing how to lift my spirits then, just as he does today, and this often involves an element of art. While we lived in the aforementioned apartment, my dad enrolled in an art class at a community college. He came home on one occasion with a sketchbook, and I couldn’t wait to peer inside. For what seemed like hours, I looked at anatomical drawings comparable to da Vinci’s. And when he asked me to be his hand, foot, or ear model, I was honoured. On a separate occasion, he brought home a stack of magazines and asked me to tear out pages of faces I liked. I handed him my selection and was a privileged eyewitness to my dad’s uncanny awareness of the special relationship between charcoal and white paper.
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It never occurred to me to not display my son’s masterpieces – and I wholeheartedly believe they are masterpieces – on our walls. Whenever he creates a new one, I ask him if I can hang it on the wall, and he says, “Tac, tac, tac!” This is because I tell him I need him to help me pull pieces of White Tac to put on the back of the masterpieces in order to make them stick to the wall.
We are currently visiting family for an extended period of time, and the first things I thought to pack – before clothes, Calpol, blankie, and favourite books and toys – were the masterpieces. I’m not sure if it was more for me or for him, but I immediately fixed the masterpieces on the walls in my parents’ home. And when my little guy’s cousins came over, he was so happy to share these drawings, paintings, collages, and sticker, cotton wool, stamp and leaf creations with them. He introduced each work of genius, excitedly stumbling over his words while describing the contents. He was so proud, and I was stolzgeschwellt watching and listening to him.
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I admit to being somewhat apprehensive when I was next in a queue fashioned to walk through Damien Hirst’s “Mother and Child Divided”. I imagined that the glass tanks would shatter, and I’d be soaked with formaldehyde and smothered by cow and calf organs. Of course, my experience was not this, and to my surprise I had a very emotional response to the work: I cried. I’m not entirely sure why, but such is my intimate relationship with art.
The effect was similar when I viewed Anish Kapoor’s “Past Present Future” and Berlinde De Bruyckere’s “Schmerzensmann IV”. I was a mess, and no amount of intellectualizing the work could keep the weepies away. And these were pre-mama days. Now, I’m a wailing fool. I took my tiny tot to see Cy Twombly at Tate Modern a couple years ago, and because the flood caused by my tears could not be contained, I was afraid Mr. Todoli would never allow me back on the premises.
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