Crumpled Home

Every night for the past six weeks, RJ has been telling us about his upcoming art gallery. We could tell it was a big deal, but we had no idea of the actual scale of the thing.

Rather than being five or six paintings that the kids had done, the gallery consisted of about 20 pieces for each child. Each piece focused on a different artistic style, technique or influence by a famous significant artist. Every inch of wall space was covered and several extra partitions were required to accommodate everything. Even the neighbouring classroom was annexed to become the food / wine / snack room!

RJ was excited to have all the important people there… Mum, Dad, LR, Grammy and even Heather and her mum came down. Poppa couldn’t make it because he was overseas.

Thanks so much to RJ’s teachers for all the effort and energy they put into this. It really was quite overwhelming and far beyond anything we expected – a fantastic job all around!

Welcome to RJ's Art Gallery!

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In the art gallery, in front of a giant (5×3 metres – 17×10 ft) Aboriginal painting.

LR: I see the problem. My paintings have all been too small.

A few minutes later…

LR: Mum, I think that I can’t paint very well because I have the wrong brushes and paints. You’ve only given me kid stuff. Let’s go to the shop and get real artists’ paints and brushes and a big canvas.

At the art shop, faced with a wall of colours (each $7).

Mum: Uh-oh. How are we going to figure out which ones you need?
Art Shop Lady: That’s okay. Get a colour wheel. Just buy the primary colours and white and black and you can make any colour.
Mum: Great!
LR: What’s a primary colour?
Art Shop Lady: It’s a colour that you can’t make from any other colours. Red, yellow and blue are the primary colours.
LR: How do you make red?
Art Shop Lady: You use chemicals.
LR: How did they make the first red?
Art Shop Lady: Umm…I don’t know. (calls over another lady)
Art Shop Lady 2: Well, you can use iron oxides or berries to make different shades of red. Or cochineal from beetles.
LR: Oh. But how did that red get made?
Mum: (stepping in at the looks on the ladies’ faces) That’s a good question. Let’s look that up. Or we’ll ask Grammie. She knows everything about art. (That’s called passing the buck)

As LR and Mum are leaving the shop, the first lady comes over, puts her hand on Mum’s shoulder and says “You poor thing.”