final voyage of the HMS

(we continue our voyage, told in three parts.)




Hermitage by Paul Klee, 1918


Year three. Here we go again, venturing out to see on the Good Ship Colorforms.

Weeks came and went, but still no words came from the Honorable MS.

We sat in close visual proximity but not next to each other like year two.
One day the kids informed me that he indeed could speak; he just didn't speak to me.

I gave up.

No, I couldn't.
Still determined to engage him, once more I walked past and made a comment on his beautiful art. He answered.
Running to my chair, I clutched its arms, pulling myself into the seat before I hit ground. Everyone looked up in joyful anticipation of a faint.

Fainting spells, though fake, were the one booty guaranteed to sway the crew of this ship, even the most surly of sailors. Having been overplied with sweets, toys, chits and stars, what they craved most was drama, and plenty of it.

I had ended promises to faint after realizing I had become a freak in a sideshow of my own design. Resigned to stop the madness, my ears now rung with the chants of children begging me to hit dirt. It's one way to make a living and besides, falling to the floor is an art in itself. This is one of a million techniques you don't learn in methods class.

Finally they figured I was not taking the dive and asked what happened.
"MS talked to me."
From that day on, we exchanged brief sentences and even had quasi-conversations now and again. This was progress.





Death and Fire by Paul Klee, 1940



Late in the year, all hands on deck, we were almost finished reading a biography of Paul Klee. Although a kid-version bio, this book thankfully does not avoid truth, including a couple of works Klee completed just prior to his death in 1940.

Kids don't need language to get life through art. They read symbols depicting depression, oppression, sickness, war and death like nobody's business. An intense, kid-propelled discussion began on the Nazis: their impact on history, artists, Jews, and all other thinking, feeling people.

Despite their behavior on schoolbuses, there is nothing that incenses children more than meanness and injustice when viewed from a third-party perspective. This fact gives me hope for the world. They see no logic in round green colorforms beating up on square red ones. Can't they all just make beautiful pictures together?

Class was almost done. We clustered around the book. MS raised his hand and waited patiently to speak. The rowdy crew became silent. He embarked in lengthy detail on a graduate-level description of Hitler's effect on the world and the implications of the holocaust.

My mouth fell open as I stared at the new commander of the ship
and realized mutiny is moot in the face of truth.

Finally I managed, "How do you know all that?"

He said, "Those are the books I like to read."

second voyage of the HMS

...we now continue our tale of adventure on the high seas of an elementary art room (see maiden voyage of the HMS).


Year two

B. grabbed the helm as usual: chitter-chattered at MS all year like he's stunted or deaf, kind of like people do to me on the job. He just smiled and looked down at what he was creating.

"Tell her Hi. Say Hi. Tell her Hi," she said a thousand times if she said it once; like telling the best in show to shake. He ignored her, smiled, kept his eyes averted. While he listened I would say, "B., the kid just won't talk to me."

This made him smile ear to ear; the sweetest mutiny on earth.
Occasionally he appeased her or us: "Hi." Two letters said so gently, I always mistook them for the breeze.
Hearing them would make her say, "GOOOOOD!!!, MS, GOOOOOOD!!!"

The pattern was to repeat every week for a year.
He did not cry; this was progress.


Next: how year three came to be.

ateliermaryk

Check out the art in my shop at etsy.com, it will be featured in the Showcase on Tuesday, July 17, and on August 7th as well. yay! I'm so excited....

maiden voyage of the HMS

Little MS arrived three years ago, in first grade, climbing aboard well into the year. Not a word did he speak. Most often he put his head in his arms on the table, trying to make himself disappear, and sobbed. Rarely began a lesson, let alone finished one.

Small, slight, a baby bird not ready to leave the nest. Obviously frightened to death. Classmates tried to help; no response. He just looked down and cried. Upon investigating the situation upon the roiling seas beyond my good ship, it became clear I had to navigate this one myself. In desperation I moved a kid, A., next to him. Although not sharing the same verbal language, maybe A. could give this kid a ray of hope. A. had also been signed on for duty at the school the same year, without a word of English either. Maybe they could speak the language of heart.

A. and I hit it off from the beginning without English, using our eyes mainly and his ability to translate my Spanish into his native tongue somewhat. We formed a raw language of color, shape and materials, threw in some crazy body language and demonstrations, or the other way around, so he could fathom directions.
He taught me in his language what I said to him in Spanish. I repeated the words and he laughed wildly at my pronunciation.

We practiced till I got it right; the kid would not let me quit. Still a perfectionist with enough charisma to light up a ballroom, destined to be a painter and knows it. Says so all the time. It is life fact for him, as it should be. Here is the self-portrait A. created that year, in 1st grade:







Aboard ship, A. buoyed MS's spirits. They became friends and MS struggled a little less. But still did not speak.

The next year, grade two, A. shipped out to another assignment in a different class. MS was on his own again.

I seated him next to me and across from a girl, B., who was a pip of a personality. Inches translated into lightyears. The prospect of watching this kid float on his island another year was too much for this salty old seadog. My hands wanted to pull him back aboard ship or at least row him to another shore. I knew I was already overboard. Inside I had reached beyond the plank too far and lost my balance. Now I was in the water with him, flailing. And at that point, you can't really help.


this tale to be continued....
meanwhile, smooth sailing on your own good ship.

on the good ship colorforms

On the totem of art jobs, the lowest possible spot is teaching little kids. Just ask a secondary art teacher; their position considered the brass ring grabbed while being spun till you can't see straight on the carousel of elementary art. It's the out-of-control babyride you can't get off of unless you jump for your life. What you seem to be good for most days is "loaning" people paper or paint. In most of their minds, that is your job focus. The same people speak to you like you're illiterate. Keep in mind, without the bottom of the totem, everything else would fall down.



(true title: "The Trojan Horse.")


The ebb and flow of the elementary art room can best be explained by the fact you are at the helm of a pirate ship. You hold fast to the wheel, trying to steady your vessel as wave after wave of unleashed primal energy buffets the ship all day long, making you swear a lot (inside) and pray for calm seas at night. Mostly you get knocked down by the shear force of the water. As waves wash up and over your boat, you are sprayed with flotsam and left clinging to the deck for dear life.
Hurry up and find your sealegs; they're not finished with you yet.



(Sorry, but the sea was rough that day.)


Each squall serves to rev up the crew, who is ready and waiting to mutiny with every turn of the tide. or your head. You spend much of the day giving commands to the mates and yelling at them to swab the deck. To maintain anything resembling your course requires every Wile E. Coyote move learned so far away, sitting like a zombie in front of Saturday a.m. cartoons. and they say they aren't educational. Ahoy, you are the commander of the good ship colorforms.

Forget the moon and stars; the natural law of colorforms as applied to your ship: you get a set of shapes, too many, different sizes and kinds. They come in different colors; some match and some don't. Your job is to figure out how to combine them into a totality, making a harmonious composition work together so your ship doesn't sink.

Some stick better to the deck than others; some fall overboard. If you crawl out on the plank too far so they can grab onto you, you lose your balance and then yourself in the drink. A seasoned captain knows from experience how far is too far. You learn to throw them something so they can kick back to ship themselves, Neptune willing.

Some are better left alone with a little space around them and others are better together. How do you know? Trial and error, luck, gut, experience, and maybe your training will help too, but don't count on it.
The sea is vast and too mysterious for anyone to know it all.





and because it ain't about Shirley no more.

miss cookie's kitchen

what is it about colorforms.
shape, color simply combined
to make bodacious arrangements.
maybe it's all the time spent
with little ones.

or maybe it's because it's
where i started from.
from the original set, to
miss cookie's kitchen
to the museum of modern art's edition
in the early '80's
now sold on ebay for a king's ransom
back to the reissued original set

miss cookie looks amazingly like me,
as does her kitchen, her dog and her cat.
i am miss cookie
warped in time
'50's girl

obsessing over
chandeliers.

i fall asleep with
this book on my face
just like with Cakewalk:
Chandeliers.
so dreamy, it's sick.

miss cookie's kitchen

what is it about colorforms.
shape, color simply combined
to make bodaciously dazzling arrangements.maybe it's all the time spent
with little ones.

or maybe it's because it's
where i started from.
with the original set
the real deal,
to miss cookie's kitchen
to the museum of modern art's edition
in the early '80's
now sold on ebay for a king's ransom
back to the reissued good old original set.

omg, miss cookie looks amazingly like me,
as does her kitchen, her dog and her cat.
i am miss cookie
warped in time '50's girl

in a state of eternal pretend tea
wearing aprons and pearls
with no intention to cook,
setting tables full of
zany plates and cups
that only the dog and cat see,
that nobody washes,
again proving
the indelible power of myth
endlessly reflected within
the prisms of the
human brain.











i fall asleep with
this book on my face
just like with Cakewalk.

so dreamy, it's sick.



my dining room:



palacio real, madrid:







abc carpet&home this spring i had the otherworldly and dizzying experience of walking in the door and didn't know where to look, up down or all around. chandeliers of every hue are suspended over the entire first floor, schmoozing with floaty fabrics in plié from the ceiling in reverance to savvily-placed fans. divine, decadent and definitely do-able for this girl, at least in her colorformed mind.


thus i present my own chandelier gallery:








kid-created chandelier:


and the ultimate condensation-proof
what-to-do-with-leftover-negative-space
template
after you punch out your colorform shapes-
iced tea glass
perfect for summer guests
on the veranda.



come closer,
try it.
love,
miss cookie