It’s not until people enter my home that I realize how unhinged our art schema really is. “Art is climbing the walls!” a friend once proclaimed. As the former proprietor and head curator at the Portland Flea—a maximalist smorgasbord of everyday objects and artwork collaged in the most pleasing of arrangements—she would know. And as usual, she was right. Our artwork does climb the walls. It’s on cabinets. It’s on windows. It’s not quite on the ceiling and floors, but… soon? Our art is indiscriminate. Devotional. Haphazard. Evocative. And most of the time I am just swallowed by it, subsumed in the ever-constant stream of new artwork flowing through the home. Finding (or losing) myself in the process of figuring out ways to accommodate and display it all, when I really think about it, might be my third or fourth full-time job. Person that deals (magnanimously) with newly acquired artworks. Resume material, right?
Given the backdrop, now picture me—proud recipient of literal mountains of gifted art—at a recent dinner party at my house, circled around the table with a group of impassioned friends decrying the evils of people who, horror of all horrors, give artwork as gifts.
“It’s just obnoxious to give someone else artwork to hang in their home,” one person railed. “How can you presume to understand what anyone else would want to look at every day?”
Another friend bemoaned the fact that her mother-in-law continues to give her and her partner artwork that they both, well, hate.
“It takes your choice away!” someone cried.
“Art is just so personal,” explained another. “It’s invasive and insensitive to think you can decorate someone else’s house without their permission.”
The consensus was clear. Giving artwork to others was a capital offense.
At this point I went into a bit of a fugue state as my friends’ voices faded to a low dial tone-like hum somewhere in the periphery. Why would I want my home to look like everyone else’s? I thought. Most people I know tend to embrace minimalism and clean lines. Others, natural materials. Others go the maximalist route and enjoy mixing styles. All these approaches to curating one’s intimate environs have aesthetic and even energetic value. Still, as I surveyed my surrounds it dawned on me that I’d like my home’s wall space to signal value of another kind.
Interrupting their one-sided debate, I wondered out loud what our gifted art decor might signal about us, or about me.
“Oh, this is different!” someone protested.
“Your home is exploding with creativity!” said another.
“The art is so special,” said a third. “It’s in a whole other category.”
Which, I suppose, is true. You see, it didn’t appear on my doorstep via an overstepping mother-in-law, nor a well-intentioned but mark-missing friend. This art—the very unhinged volume and variety of it—is original. It was produced not by me (though I’m an artist, too), nor by anyone you’ve ever heard of before. Rather, it was studiously—some might say zealously – crafted by my children, ages 5 and 8, who produce more and more (and more) of it. Every. Single. Day.
I’ve become accustomed to the steady influx, so it’s not until someone else witnesses how I’ve allowed it to crawl up the walls (as my other friend so kindly noted) that I realize my particular brand of interior design is my kids’ artwork. At which point I find myself simultaneously embarrassed and proud.
But truly: what a great problem to have, no? In today’s world, the issue of dealing with your children’s overabundance of artwork is synonymous with hashtag blessed. It means we have the time and space to create… and as a creative myself, there’s truly nothing more I yearn for. Though I’m sure someone out there will argue this point, in my own personal Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs I’d place art-making somewhere near the top. It means we’re safe. We’re fed. We have each other. And under these conditions we can tend to the more transcendent realms of the human experience: Our visions. Our unique expressions. Our aesthetic experiments.
When I look at it this way, the “problem” of gifted art shines in a softer light. Any encouragement of art-making, art-displaying, or art-at-large seems like a general move in support of the human spirit. And therein lies the crux of the art-as-gift conundrum: When our experience of art is a spiritual matter, how can we discern what subtleties of form, color, image or scene may deeply move another? For encountering art you love is like pinning a cloud to the ground. It’s elusive and seemingly miraculous as the human spirit itself. It helps us remember who we are. To become who we are meant to be.
This may seem an overly romantic take on things, but I don’t want to reduce life to only that which I see before me. I want to dream into possibilities. And I want this for my kids, too. For taking this leap—to feel the deeper parts of ourselves, to imagine something new—is how they will change the world.
I pose all this to my friends—not wanting to derail their tirade against art-givers but feeling there was something bigger at stake—who pivot in vigorous agreement: Making art is life-affirming. Even the sometimes-dicey situation of receiving art you don’t quite care for, someone begrudgingly concedes, is a blessing. It means you’ve got people that care about you enough to spend their precious time and money on something they hope will make you smile.
So don’t feel bad if you’ve given someone art as a present. The recipients may never hang it, but your heart was in the right place.
And for you parents with crafty little kiddos who, like me, find yourselves facing quandaries around wall space-to-artwork ratios, fears of being a monster (who throws it all away) or a hoarder (saving every last doodle), alongside the looming desire for aesthetic control, I invite you to consider this:
Next time you find yourself dangling another drawing over the recycling bin, pause for a moment and take a good look at what it really is. It may just be how your 6-year-old passed the time one afternoon, a day like any other. But maybe the picture they drew of that pink tree on a blue mountain, with an indeterminate orange animal floating randomly in the corner is… something else. What if it’s a reflection of their spirit, just as it was, right then, tethered to paper. What if your kids’ artwork is a reflection of you, too…a small reminder of your own unremembered youth. There was a time, most likely, when you believed an animal could float in the corner too.
If we can give this gift to our kids—the time and space to create, to fail, to find their way through—regardless of whether their creations make it to the walls, we will know, at least for now, the world has not yet turned them away from their own magic.
And what could be a greater gift than that?
