“This… looks like a mess.”
That’s what a mother, here named Andrea Parker, said to her son when he proudly showed off his latest ink drawing. Let’s call this son… Neil.
Neil Orlando Parker.
Now, Neil is a thirteen-year-old kid just starting high school. He’s at that age of opportunity where any kind of club or group would welcome him with open arms. During the Involvement Fair, he found a nice group of kids called the Inkers Club. It is an art club that focuses on teaching students about sketching and drawing with ink pens and practicing calligraphy. While unfamiliar to Neil, the idea of putting shapes to paper really appealed to him. So, he signed up for their newsletter.
Meetings took place every Wednesday during lunch hour at a special recreation room on the east end of the school campus. Thirty students in total made up the club. The student leader Michael was assisted by a beginning art teacher Ms. Willingham, and after all of the members’ introductions, the first creative exercise began. Everyone took a blank piece of paper, a metal tip pen, and a jar of black ink. The directive: to take whatever they could imagine and put it to the page. No restrictions. No critique. Complete freedom. Complete support.
Out of everything high school offered, it was the freedom that most excited Neil. The chance to let his mind run wild on a wide-open plain of white pulp with black trails of ink became such a wonderful thing. The chaotic thoughts of the mind found their home on the page to create a full illustration.
It wasn’t bad, for a beginner. The main visual theme of the piece was spirals. The continuous line showed a variety of line thickness and depth, starting thick and dark black on the outside but growing thinner and lighter once the spiral reaches the center.
For his first art piece, Neil chose the title “Ebony Gyres.” He found both words in a dictionary lying around the recreation room. They sounded super cool say.
His fellow students were impressed. Ms. Willingham said it revealed the creative and experimental mind Neil had. The compliments got Neil buzzing. He ran home with the drawing safely tucked into his backpack, just so excited to show his mom he had a great day at school. He may have found what he wanted to do as a career. He looked forward to what his mother, his supporter in all things would say.
When Andrea held “Ebony Gyres” in her hands, the reaction was not at all what he expected or what he hoped for.
“This… looks like a mess.” His own mother said that. She may not have meant the way it sounded, but the effect it had on Neil is just the same. She did not understand the art, but it still hurt.
The hurt won’t stop him. He does need to get better, but it’ll be for just himself. He’ll need to reread that dictionary.
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