{"id":3637,"date":"2017-11-13T09:00:57","date_gmt":"2017-11-13T09:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dotkalm.com\/bumpspark\/?p=3637"},"modified":"2018-10-15T16:17:49","modified_gmt":"2018-10-15T16:17:49","slug":"my-mothers-moment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dotkalm.com\/bumpspark\/my-mothers-moment\/","title":{"rendered":"My Mother’s Moment"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Paier Art School in New Haven, Connecticut<\/a> holds portfolio reviews once a semester during their open house weekends. I kept this knowledge in the back of my head for years, maybe a decade. I wanted to gather a small portfolio of my mom\u2019s artwork and take her to get a review, but I could never find the time.<\/p>\n

Taking pictures of her work, gathering them together, encouraging her to go\u2014it was another project and I had too many projects on too many desks. The first time I thought of the idea, I made the effort and it didn\u2019t happen. Like all of us, Mom is good at keeping an idea in the \u201cmaybe\u201d category if it involves some anxiety.<\/p>\n

On reflection, who can blame her? I wanted to force her to get critiqued. In my defense, I only imagined good things would come of it.<\/p>\n

Mom\u2019s framed oils have always sat, hung, or hid around our family home. I don\u2019t know if I\u2019ve seen them all, but I know her favorites like we all know The Starry Night<\/em><\/a> or Girl with a Pearl Earring<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

The child wearing a hat of petals built with thick brushstrokes, the separate portraits of an elderly couple with their piercing eyes in their heavy frames, the still life of apples and cotton stems surrounding a copper pitcher, the small nude of a woman in a towel, and the hobo in clown makeup with matchsticks in his hat\u2014these are the first works of art I knew.<\/p>\n

Mom painted these pictures in the 1960s while studying under a woman in Chelmsford, Massachusetts. She and my father moved there so he could work as an engineer on the Apollo Project at Avco Manufacturing<\/a>. They stayed until we landed on the moon.<\/p>\n

Mom never liked the process of oils, the smell of the turpentine, and the prolonged clean up, particularly when she had my sister. She never stopped creating though. She built wreaths and centerpieces in a basement workshop fragrant with pinecones and cloves. She studied ceramics and acrylics and painted on birdhouses and antiques when we were in high school. We always had four Christmas trees.<\/p>\n

Just into her eighties now and taking care of my dad, Mom started experimenting with watercolors a few years ago. She\u2019s always regretted not pursuing her work more seriously.<\/p>\n

Paier stayed in my mind. I would get a postcard in the mail or a notification online. At some point, I bought a little portfolio. Another time, I went through the house and took the photos. Recently, she invited my sister\u2019s family and my family to see a show at the Shubert in New Haven and the date sounded familiar. It was the same Saturday as the next Paier open house.<\/p>\n

I called ahead. I called the family. I printed out the portfolio.<\/p>\n

Like Yale\u2019s Art and Architecture Building, the Temple Street Parking Garage, and the Armstrong Tire building that now serves as a billboard for IKEA, Paier\u2019s main building is one of New Haven\u2019s Brutalist landmarks<\/a>. The intimidating, bunker-like architecture is named after the French for “raw concrete.<\/a>”<\/p>\n

Driving up to that grim, urban location on a gray afternoon, I was suddenly apprehensive. The parking lot was empty. What if we were too late? Or what if the critique was too honest, or too careless? What if the only reason I liked Mom\u2019s work was because she was my mom?<\/p>\n

Then I felt an impulse that, honestly, has taken me decades to shape: push through. When it\u2019s raining at your location and your actor doesn\u2019t show up, or when the nerves of everyone you\u2019ve gathered for a project are getting the best of them, or even when you just have to fail this time to get to a next time. Push. Through.<\/p>\n

A number of sidewalks and buildings took us in different directions. We had to keep track of Dad. Grandchildren were everywhere. Mom and I headed alone toward yet another building based off the mumbled directions of the only soul we\u2019d encountered.<\/p>\n

Inside was a library and the warmth that comes from a small space filled with books and paintings. Three older, distinguished men in blazers took Mom and her little portfolio and gave her a seat and started to turn pages and suddenly we were in it. What hadn\u2019t looked anything like I\u2019d imagined became more than I\u2019d hoped for.<\/p>\n

If I paid three actors to read a script, it couldn\u2019t have gone better.<\/p>\n

Bob Zappalorti, John Falato, and Whitney Prentice hunched and looked, while she told her story. They laughed about Mom\u2019s dislike of oils and turpentine and \u201cthe smell and the mess.\u201d All three love the smell and the mess. Mom criticized her inability to draw from her imagination, saying she always needed \u201csomething to look at.\u201d<\/p>\n

John said, \u201cNo one draws from their head, unless it\u2019s abstract. We all start from some reference.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, I hadn\u2019t realized it until they pointed it out, but the three artists\u2019 own beautiful oils were on easels right behind them. John paints mostly landscapes<\/a>. Whitney paints mostly figures<\/a>. Bob is a Trompe-l\u2019\u0153il painter<\/a>, which means he paints still-lifes with such detail, they \u201ctrick the eye<\/a>\u201d into believing its seeing three-dimensional objects.<\/p>\n

Bob said, \u201cWe have nothing to teach you. Our students have so much work to do, so many assignments, they don\u2019t have the time to find themselves. You\u2019ve already found yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

John said, \u201cI can teach a student to draw an apple and make that apple luscious. I can\u2019t teach them how to draw their own apple like this is your own rose.\u201d<\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t part of the conversation; I just listened. Maybe I was a little stunned. Whitney, the youngest and quietest of the three, walked over to me at some point and said, \u201cThese guys are tough. You should be proud.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bob looked me in the eye, right then. \u201cWe\u2019re not bullshitting you. She\u2019s good.\u201d<\/p>\n

When we walked out, Mom was beaming. We found the entire family in a large gallery of Paier student work that was stunning in its skill and scope and its many visions<\/a>. Our kids, all artists in their own ways, craned their necks at the colorful paintings, sketches, and designs.<\/p>\n

I thought about my moment of hesitation and the moment that existed now on the other side. Maybe that\u2019s why I do it, why we all do it. When you truly try something that could go either way, it reminds you afterwards that every day is open, to all of the possibilities, good and bad, if we take them, and push through. The moments that go well are that much more miraculous.<\/p>\n

I looked over at Mom holding her portfolio, eight decades in the making.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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